In a heartbeat, everything can change.
The women you love can look at you with fear and hatred.
Your friends can look at you with horror and terror.
Your enemies can look at you with loathing and pleasure at what they have succeeded at doing.
Your partners can look at you with pity, all the while urging you to fight.
In a heartbeat, everything can change.
Of course, if your heart doesn't actually beat, how can you tell?
Let's back up a bit, shall we?
Booth (Angel) POV
(48 hours earlier)
"Common Bones! We got a case. Let's go!" Booth rapped sharply on the door to Dr. Temperance Brennan's office. Bones was sitting at her desk surrounded by paperwork. She looked up at him with relief written over her usually calm and composed face.
"Thank you Booth!" She grabbed her jacket as she all but ran out the door. Booth smiled to himself as the normally calm scientist dashed to the waiting car. He followed at a slower pace, enjoying the sun. A prickle at the base of his neck caused him pause and look around. There was nothing outside of the Jeffersonian that was out of the ordinary.
A honk from his car distracted him and the feeling was gone as quickly as it had come. Booth turned with a last glance at the Jeffersonian and walked to the car.
"Young Caucasian female, aged between late teens to early twenties and about 5'4." Bones crouched over the mummified corpse and spoke into her recorder calmly. The body was splayed in the middle of an abandoned warehouse surrounded by a circle of dead rats.
"Bones, what's up with the rats?" Booth demanded.
"I'm assuming that they tried to eat the soft tissue from the body and were poisoned by something or other. We'll need to get them back to the lab for testing." Bones answered while she peered at the skull.
"It looks like blunt force trauma to the back of the head is what killed her, but I can't be sure with all the flesh that's left."
"Booth, you should come see this." Cam's voice drifted out from one of the office rooms in the warehouse. Cam, Bones and Booth were the only ones on scene at the moment; the first on scene had been called away to a domestic something or other. That's usually what happens in a small town with a small police force.
Booth walked toward the room Cam was standing in but stopped dead in the doorway. The room's walls were covered in crosses, along with the ceiling and floors as well. In the middle of the empty room, there was a circle of black candles that had burned out. All that was left was a pool of wax surrounding an open book and a bowl that was filled with a dark blue liquid.
Booth winced automatically when he first entered the room. The crosses couldn't burn him anymore, thanks to the Gem of Amara that was on his right hand. After him and Spike had defeated the Circle of the Black Thorn, The Powers That Be had remade the Gem for him, telling him that he could now have a relatively normal life. They had also made a Gem for Spike. The two vampires had split ways shortly after that battle (Buffy and most of the other slayers had come to save them near the end, but they had already nearly defeated most of the demons. PTB had awarded the vampires anyway.) Also PTB had created a past for Angel. In a few days he had gone from Angel, CEO of Wolfram and Hart in L.A to Special Agent Seeley Booth of the F.B.I. The downside was that he remembered everything about being Angel.
All of Booth's senses were still heightened to vampire level and he could feel evil lurking in the room. Forcing himself to remember the dead girl behind him, he turned to Cam and ordered, "Bag everything and take it to Hodgins." Cam looked taken aback by Booth's harsh tone, but he had already walked out.
(44 hours earlier)
"I've ran the girl's DNA through every known data-base there is and I've found nothing. Same with facial recognition. This girl is a ghost." Angela scowled fiercely at her computer screen as she watched a picture she had drawn of the skull. It was of a blond girl with a narrow nose and full lips over a strong jaw. From the remains on scene, they had found that the girl had had light blue eyes and choppy hair. The sketch Angela had drawn of the girl was a picture of a twenty-year-old that looked happy and carefree, but her eyes had knowledge in their depths that shouldn't exist in someone so young. It was eerie how well Angela was able to draw the victims.
Booth studied the revolving picture with dismay. Everything the squints had found from the girl's body had pointed to the fact she was a slayer. The fact there was multiple broken bones that had healed in record time, signs that the muscled had been at least four times stronger then a human and lots of other evidence. His unnatural senses were going haywire and he could've sworn that someone was watching him.
"Is there anything else you could try Ang?" Bones demanded from her place next to Booth.
"No sweetie. I've tried everything. Medical records, DNA, facial, missing persons. There's nothing." Angela huffed in frustration.
"Keep trying. I'll see if there's anything else I can find on the skeleton." With that Bones turned and marched out. Booth gave Angela a helpful pat on the shoulder before following his partner out of Angela's office. Bones was already on the platform with Wendell hovering beside her. The brilliant scientist had her head bent over the skull, her nose nearly touching it as she searched for something that could help break the case. It made Booth's soul jump (his heart didn't beat.) to look at her.
Leaning back, Bones picked up the skull for an even closer examination as Booth swiped his pass and mounted the stairs. A look of confusion crossed Bones' face as she turned the girl's head over in her hands. Booth recognized the look on her face and he leaned forward eagerly.
"Got anything Bones?" He asked hopefully. She didn't answer; instead she grabbed a pair of tweezers and began poking at one of the teeth. Booth saw nothing interesting or remotely important, so he rocked back on his heels and waited.
"Is that…?" Wendell asked as he leaned even closer to the skull.
"Yes." Bones cried triumphantly as she pulled the right canine from its place and held it up to the light. Booth couldn't see anything unusual with the tooth. It looked like a… well… a tooth! Booth couldn't see what was so exciting about a fricking tooth, but the scientist seemed to think it was very important.
Without a word to him, Bones whirled and rushed to Angela's office, Wendell trailing behind her. With a sigh, Booth hurried after them. Walking through the doorway, Booth noticed that Bones had already handed the tooth to Angela.
"Is this what I think it is?" Angela asked, looking up at her friend. Bones nodded. Angela gasped and whirled to place the tooth on a scanner.
"Could someone fill in the only non-squint in the room?" Booth demanded.
"There's a microchip in the tooth." Angela mumbled distractedly as she started the scanner. Before Booth could say anything, the scanner beeped and Angela hurried back to her computer.
"Oh. My. God." Angela stared at the computer screen, with everyone crowding around to watch. Booth was stunned to see files, files of national security, F.B.I, NSA, CIA and many other agencies files, flicker by on the screen, almost faster than his eye could follow. Which meant that it was a blur to Bones, Wendell and Angela.
All Booth could think was, why the hell does a (possible) slayer have a microchip in one of her teeth?
Thank you to everyone who has decided to read this! :D It means a lot, mostly because I never thought I would ever manage to post this. Please no flames, but any clicks on that blue botton would make my day C:
~lazerwolf314