Author's Introduction (Updated Sept 2013): Not long after Ghost in the Machine first aired (Dec 2012), and after I dared her to write a certain story that you all will hopefully see some day, Casket4mytears took her revenge by asking me to write a story with this prompt: "What was going on with Brennan during Ghost in the Machine." So I watched the episode twice, gave it some thought, and suddenly inspiration hit. I doubt this is what she expected, but surprises are always welcome, especially birthday surprises. :)
Short on time? This is a two part story.
Part One ends at Chapter 20, roughly 81,000 words, and it's a completely self contained story.
Part Two begins with Chapter 21 and will pick up where Part One ended. Part Two runs from chapter 21-47 and is roughly 145,000 words.
Disclaimer: Many talented people own these characters and plot lines, but alas, I am not among them. I'm just plucking out the threads that are already there and weaving an entirely different kind of story from them. I am not profiting from this story in any material way. Any lines I borrow are lovingly used to illustrate a larger story that I believe might have been hidden in the television show all along.
Spoiler Alert (Expired): It's been so long now that I'll only say there are general spoilers for multiple episodes over the course of all eight seasons. As this story concludes, we've just started season nine in the US, so spoilers are no longer a concern.
~Q~
"I see a face on every skull," she'd told a courtroom once. As with everything else Temperance Brennan had ever said, she meant that literally….
~Q~
~A Face on Every Skull~
~Q~
The sense of death is most in apprehension;
And the poor beetle that we tread upon,
In corporal sufferance feels a pang as great
As when a giant dies.
Measure for Measure, Act III, scene 1, line 77.
It had happened this fast a few times before.
Dr. Temperance Brennan stepped beside her colleague, Dr. Jack Hodgins, and looked down into the skull he'd uncovered and wrested away from agitated wasps. She gazed into the twin ocular orbits, seeing the face slowly form before her own eyes. A nose sprouted from the nasal bone, grew together from the sides and base of the nasal aperture, lengthening into tapered nares. She saw eyes closed, brows feathering above the supraorbital ridges. The face was symmetrical, vaguely feminine, yet under Hodgins's palms she could see the angle of the mandibular ramus suggested male. He'd had a male jawline.
As she studied the bones curiously, a silken ripple of thought disturbed her, feeling like someone had blown out their birthday candles inside of her own cranium. She fought off the urge to shiver, held back her frown, and let her gaze sweep over what Hodgins beheld. The ripples in her mind brushed faintly over her thoughts as if whispered from within the auditory center of her brain. Words formed.
"Listen to me…"
Brennan dropped her gaze and asked Hodgins to do something about the wasps. Their buzzing was making her imagine she'd heard something.
As she walked away, returning to the long bones that were still bundled in an old sleeping bag, the buzzing followed her. She heard someone speaking to her and almost had to force herself to look up into her partner's concerned eyes.
"Is everything okay?" he asked.
She nodded, gesturing to where Hodgins was now applying a fast-acting insecticide. "I'm waiting for Hodgins to clear out the wasps."
While she waited for the insecticide to do its work, she quickly assessed the length and fusion of epiphyseal plates of the long bones. The secondary centers of ossification at the distal end of the humerus had begun to fuse as well as those at the proximal end of the femur, suggesting an age of approximately 13-14 years old.
A few moments later, Hodgins called her back over to the skull and her partner, Special Agent Seeley Booth stood anxiously by while Brennan inspected it more carefully. "The skull is congruent with the other bones we've uncovered."
"One victim, that's good," Booth remarked. "So, he was probably wrapped in that sleeping bag and covered with a layer of dirt."
Turning the skull carefully in her palms, Brennan tried to ignore the features that floated over bones. What she 'saw' could not be quantified, not until Angela recreated it. Instead, a forensic anthropologist had to focus on what was in front of her, only the information that could go into a scientific report and be accepted in a legal court case. This skull had small, squared orbits and an inverted, heart-shaped nasal opening. The front teeth jutted forward slightly. The zygomatic was sharply angled and the chin sharp and narrow. There was a bit of projection around the upper lateral orbital ridges. The frontal bone sloped slightly off the brow but rose steadily to the top above the glabella.
Most of these observations she kept to herself, knowing Booth would lose his patience with her. All he wanted to know was gender and age, and race if she could give it to him. The markers in the bone were indistinct, however. This person had been young, pubescent. Secondary sexual characteristics had not really begun to develop so she could not declare gender with any certainty. She never liked working gender with just skulls even when she knew they were adults.
"How were the remains found," Brennan inquired, mostly to keep Booth busy with something other than pestering her for gender.
"A real estate agent estimating this place for resale and they heard the wasps." They were inside of a green house that seemed to have spent the last year or two in disuse. That question and answer was used up far too quickly, and Booth came out next with the question she'd been hoping to avoid a little longer.
"So, what do you think?" Booth asked. "Man or a woman?"
Brennan's mouth opened for a half second, but she stalled. "I ... am uncomfortable defining sex from just a skull." Especially from this skull, because she still wasn't sure. The bone markers were slightly androgynous.
"Oh, come on. Take a stab." Booth began cajoling her with the slightest hint of teasing. "I won't write anything down, I promise. Just between me and you." He glanced beside him at Hodgins, who had appeared at his elbow. "Oh, well..." Booth shrugged. It was only Hodgins.
Hodgins laughed. "What," he called defensively. Seeing the reluctant expression Brennan wore, his shoulders fell. "You don't want to take a stab in front of me." Clearly the thought had wounded him, just a little.
"I feel inhibited by my desire not to embarrass myself in front of another scientist."
But that wasn't it. Despite how irrational she knew it would sound, it wasn't Hodgins she was worried about guessing wrong in front of. Brennan turned back to the skull, waiting for her intuition or whatever it was to give her the final clue. The bone structure wasn't enough.
Hodgins scoffed gesturing to Booth. "What about him?"
Absently, she rattled off something about synergy and having sex, which accomplished her goal. Booth blushed and sent Hodgins packing. Once Hodgins was gone, Booth leaned in with a conspiratorial whisper. "So, what do ya think? Go ahead."
"Orbit shape square, orbit size small. Placement in the skull, low. These are extremely telling morphometrics." But she knew she wasn't telling Booth anything. She was hedging, covering her ... mule? No, ass. Yes, covering her ass.
Booth sighed impatiently. "A little hint, Bones."
Brennan turned back to the skull, her gaze flickering over the face. Finally, settling on the jaw, she threw her best guess out. "Male."
"Male!"
The scratching of pen on paper drew her sharply around. "You said you wouldn't write anything down!"
"I'm just writing down morphometrics so I can look it up later on." It was almost the charm smile he sent to her. His eyes had begun to twinkle, but before it could fully bloom, Brennan's lack of receptivity seemed to register.
"I can be more definite about age. Pubescent."
Booth's hands fell to his sides, all pretense at joking fleeing. "It's a kid?"
Brennan nodded and returned to the rest of the skeleton. "Partial fusion of the distal humerus and femoral head." *
"A kid," Booth repeated dispiritedly.
Hodgins heard and walked back over, his gaze fixed on the skull. "A kid? Oh, man. How old?"
"Thirteen or fourteen."
"Oh, I hate when it's a kid."
Brennan didn't recall Hodgins ever having strong feelings about the age of victims in the past. She might have said something (inappropriate, blunt, thoughtless) before, but now she knew what had changed for him. "Well, that's because you have a son yourself and you can't help but draw the connection."
Booth nudged her. "Same with me though, and Parker."
Brennan knew that. Booth had always gotten upset about kids, ever since she'd known him. At times he'd even lost his patience with her, when she didn't show enough turmoil to satisfy his level of disquiet. She'd always rationalized away her feelings, and she did that now. "Fortunately for me, Christine is a girl, and so the comparison is not as close to home."
So there was no reason to feel upset. It's not Christine. It's not Parker either. Brennan gazed at the face she saw, knowing he was somebody's son.
She felt Booth's steady hand on her shoulder. "Christine's going to be fine, all right?"
Christine is a girl, a baby, she's at home and safe. It was irrational, the way she was feeling, this prickling of tears and the tightness in her throat. "I feel a sudden desire to hold her."
"We will," he promised.
"And you should call Parker," Brennan added. Unnecessarily, she knew.
"I will."
Brennan lifted the skull, carefully placing it in a box. She lingered a moment, studying his face. For a moment she felt compelled to say something, but there was only bone and clinging dirt resting in the box. This boy couldn't hear her. With a resigned sigh, she turned away to focus on gathering soil samples from under the body.
~Q~
*Scientific Note: in the episode, Brennan gives the age as 13-14 based on partial fusion of the distal radius and acromion. However, my source indicates that fusion begins in the humerus and femur at this age (the radius is later). The clavicle is actually the last bone to fuse, usually in the early to mid 20s. The clavicle (collar bone) joins the scapula (shoulder blade) and where they join is called the acromion. My source is Human Osteology, 3rd Edition, by White, Black & Folkens. Sorry Hart Hanson, I'm going with the 'expert' at my disposal on this.
Author's Note: We're beginning at Ghost in the Machine because this is where we're going to end when the story is finished. The remaining chapters are going to go back to the beginning (the very beginning) to show how two pivotal relationships plus one amazing talent shapes Brennan's reactions to the dead, not just in Ghost in the Machine, but with every skull she comes into contact with.
As with all of my stories (unless otherwise specified), I write from canon. If I put something in this story, it's because I have a textual justification. That is to say, I've got an actual moment from the show itself, or a quote from Hart Hanson himself, that backs me up. I'm telling a story here that I think has been hidden all along, and it was finally revealed in Ghost in the Machine.