Seeley Booth strode into Dr Temperance Brennan's office at the Jeffersonian without even a thought of knocking.
"Bones, What are you doing?"
Dr Brennan was sitting at her desk, her head rested on her arm. She turned to look at him and replied in a defeated tone.
"My editor wants the first chapter of my new book by the end of the week and I haven't even come up with a story yet. Why are you here?"
"We have a case". He was practically bouncing with joy as he shifted his weight back and forth.
Brennan visibly perked up at this. She sat up straighter and swivelled her chair to face him, giving him her full attention.
"I thought that might cheer you up" he said as he walked towards her to hand her the file to take a look at.
"Are you having the remains shipped to the Jeffersonian"
He smiled at her sudden enthusiasm. "I brought them with me. I know how much you like bones in the morning."
"Well lets get started." She said, already rising from her chair and striding off in the direction of the platform.
Booth followed at a slightly more leisurely pace. Swiping her card Brennan quickly climbed the stairs and moved towards the remains which Zack had placed on the table and was now examining.
"What do you see Zack?"
"The first set of remains appear to be that of a male, 30-35, medium build, Caucasian features, with obvious trauma to the back of the skull. I haven't had a chance to do a full exam of the other two sets of remains but they appear to be of the same age range and of similar features. Where were they found?"
Booth, who had now joined Brennan and Zack on the platform answered, "The first guy was found on a cruise ship, inside a steam pipe during routine maintenance"
Zack looked momentarily confused, "What about the other two. It looks like he's been there a while, but the other remains look even older."
"Two maintenance workers were doing repairs inside the steam pipe when they discovered this guy. His wedding ring gave us the name of Keith Mathers. You guys are here to confirm that but we can be pretty sure its him." Booth paused to let Brennan and Zack look over the bones.
"How was he identified by his wedding ring?" Brennan spoke while her attention remained focused on the skull.
"It had 'Keith & Maria forever' and their wedding date engraved on it." Booth replied.
"And so the wife identified it?" Brennan interrupted.
"The body of Maria Mathers was found in the honeymoon suite of the Mercury Princess Cruise Ship almost 2 years ago. Story at the time was that the husband had killed her while on their honeymoon and just slipped off the boat while it was in port somewhere."
Zach looked up at Booth and said "I guess they thought wrong."
Brennan looked up at Zach sharply. She didn't like to make jokes about such a serious matter. Booth meanwhile continued.
"Their luggage was all still in the room but the police didn't think that was odd because it was covered in blood and he would have had a hard time getting it off the boat without it being noticed."
"How did the wife die?" Booth, Brennan and Zack all turned at the sound of Cam's voice. They hadn't noticed that she and Angela had stepped onto the Platform moments before.
Booth returned his attention to Brennan and replied, "Her throat was cut in the bedroom of the suite."
"I'm still not seeing where the other two sets of remains figure into this" Zack was looking a little confused and very afraid to be addressing the FBI agent.
"Well when I landed the case I had the locals pull up anything else they could find involving deaths on cruise ships and they found two other incidents where young women on their honeymoon's were found dead in their rooms and the husbands had simply vanished. That got me thinking that maybe if this guy hadn't left the ship that maybe hubby numbers two and three hadn't either. I had them do a search of the steam pipes and maintenance ducts on the other boats and 'voila' we now have two more dead husbands."
"So if we have a serial killer on our hands why didn't anyone pick up on this before." Cam spoke up trying to understand why the deaths of the three women had not been linked earlier.
"Well it was different boats and the police had a clear suspect in each case, the husband, so they didn't bother to dig any deeper. Also the killings were all two years apart, always around Valentine's Day. I guess the killer really has a thing about the day. All the files say the same thing, they were the happiest couple on the ship, everyone on board remembered them and all three won the best couple prize."
"The best couple prize?" Brennan asked.
"Yeah its this thing they do on cruise ships, everyone votes and then one night at dinner the captain awards the prizes, best couple, cutest kid, that sort of thing. You know, it's just like at high school." A wistful smile erupted on Angela's face as she remembered. "You know I was voted most likely to marry a rock star"
Cam and Booth laughed. Cam continued "I was voted most likely to become president."
"Yeah, for me it was most likely to save the world." Booth reminisced. "What about you Bones?"
"I don't remember" She looked edgy and clearly wanted to change the topic of conversation.
"Aw, come on you have to remember, what was it?" He flashed her his best charm smile and puppy dog pleading eyes.
"Fine, it was most likely to become a famous singer and most likely to cure cancer. I got two for some reason." She looked away nervously.
A look of disbelief crossed the faces of everyone except Angela who simply smiled. Booth looked the most shocked, "You can sing?"
Angela was almost giddy with pride. "Its how Bren and I met in college. We both were drunk at Karaoke night and started chatting. She is amazing."
Booth turned to look at Brennan, "How come you never told me you can sing?" He looked a little hurt that she hadn't told him about this part of her.
"I wasn't hiding it from you, it just never came up, and I'm not that good Angela was exaggerating." She seemed uncomfortable and returned her attention to the other remains.
"I was voted most likely to build a race of killer robots but I don't know why." Zach said to no-one in particular.
The others all turned to him when he said this but opted to let the remark pass.
Brennan keen to end the conversation and return to work looked up at Booth and said "I'm almost done with my preliminary exam. I'll have Hodgins take a look at the particulates and then when Zach is finished cleaning the bones I'll give the skulls to Angela to get a face. Most of the damage is to the back of the skulls so this shouldn't take to long. I'll call you when we can give a positive id on the three bodies."
"Oh no you don't it's Valentines Day on Thursday we have a boat to catch. There is a special Romance cruise for Valentines Day on the only Mercury cruise ship the killer hasn't hit and it's leaving tomorrow from Miami."
"Booth I cannot just drop everything to go sailing with you." Brennan mentally began a list of all the things she had to do this week.
Angela got a sly look in her eye. A Valentines Day Romance cruise, Booth and Brennan alone together, she simply HAD to get them on that boat, it was too good an opportunity to pass up.
"You know, this would be the perfect case for you two to go undercover."
Booth looked suddenly nervous. "Angela, ah no, me and bones, undercover, no way, there's just no way."
Brennan misunderstood and thought Booth was implying she wasn't good enough to go undercover assignment with him and a stern, determined look crossed her face.
"Why not, we went undercover in Vegas and that went fine. I think going undercover is an excellent idea. Unless you have a problem with me as your partner Booth?"
"No, no, I mean yes. I can't go undercover with you Bones." One look at her face told him this was the wrong answer. Truth be told he really couldn't think of anything better than taking an almost holiday with Bones on a 5 star cruise ship, but he wasn't so sure about pretending to be newlyweds. He paused then backtracked,
"No you're right Angela, Bones' and I have to go undercover it's the only way." He turned and address Brennan again. "Our flight leaves tomorrow at 8.00am so i'll pick you up at 6.30am."
He started to leave and then turned back to her and added almost as an afterthought,
"Maybe you should bring a ring."
Then he strode off the platform and out of the lab.
"Ring?" she called after him. Booth didn't respond as he was already at the main doors out of the lab. For a moment Brennan looked confused and then she had a moment of realisation and her whole face flushed crimson. "He wants to go undercover as newlyweds, I thought he meant go on the ship as passengers or even as cruise staff. I can NOT pretend to be married to Booth. I don't even believe in marriage."
An embarrassed and shocked Temperance sank heavily onto one of the chairs on the platform. Angela ran over to her squealing in delight.
"Bren, I absolutely HAVE to take you shopping after work. You are going to need new clothes, a seriously hot bikini, and something for the evenings".
As Angela continued to verbally tick off the things she would need to buy for her friend the reality of what had just happened began to sink in for Temperance.
"I am going to be Booth's wife."