Thank you Greaser4life and star1the2friend for reviewing the previous chapter, I very much appreciated it.

I have modified this chapter from it slightly from its original version, I hope you all enjoy it.

-I do not own Bones.

Chapter Two: The unfolding of a sly disguise

A melancholic stillness had settled over the lab, it took it's course through each and everyone of them, and each of them responded in their own way, Dr. Brennan went to work on examining the skull, October had offered to help her, it seemed that today (of all days) her assistant couldn't come in... It was ironic in way, that she finally was able to work with the brilliant forensic anthropologist that she had heard so much about.. That she had, at one point in her life, idealized... It could have been thrilling... a wonderful experience... If it had been under any other circumstances...And if she still idealized her...

October walked up to Angela's office doorway and knocked on the already open doorway, her voice was barely audible when she said "Hello, Angela".

Angela-who had been staring at the ground while spinning slowly in her chair- looked up, her eyes watered slightly when she saw the skull that resided on the tray that October had been holding, it had tissue markers on it which meant that it was ready for a facial reconstruction. "Hey, October" she replied, her voice cracked on the second word.

October walked tentatively towards Angela, she set the tray down on Angela's desk, she had already turned around and was halfway to the door when a thought occurred to her, she had been curious about something, she wasn't entirely sure if now was the right time, but she decided that she might as well ask, what did she have to lose? , she spun around, a bit too fast and she nearly fell over, she ended up doing a sort of dance in an attempt to keep her balance. Once she was stable she walked back to Angela's desk, she hesitated slightly then said "Um...Angela... Can I ask you something?"

"What?"

"Why don't you want Dr. Brennan to check the dental records before you do the facial reconstruction?"

"I... I just wanted to give him a face, you know?" Angela looked up at her, her grief portrayed itself clearly in the redness of her eyes "I mean.. If this is him then.." She didn't finish the sentence, October guessed that she couldn't.

"I'm so sorry, Angela... I, I guess I was just too late..."

"No" Angela said, a new resolve in her voice as she turned her gaze towards the skull on her desk "Don't be sorry, not yet, we don't know for sure that this is him"

"Angela, they called the, er.. facility he was staying at, they said that he wasn't there..."

"No" Angela said simply

October decided to leave it alone, she didn't want to be the one to crush Angela's hope.

Just then something on the skull caught her eye, she leaned over Angela's desk and snatched the skull from Angela's hands.

"Hey!?" Angela exclaimed at Octobers sudden-and rather rude- action.

"Sorry, I..." her sentenced trailed off, she appeared to be deep in thought as she observed the skull "How could she have missed that..." she mumbled allowed. A second later October was walking briskly towards Hodgins, with Angela trailing behind her attempting to get October to explain herself, but to now avail, October simply marched on, the skull held tightly in her gloved hands.

"Hodgins I-" October began but she was cut short by the sight of Dr. Brennan, it seems that she had already figured out what October had come to tell Hodgins "I knew that you couldn't have missed something like that, Dr. Brennan" October said handing her the skull, smiling slightly, she then turned towards Hodgins and said "Cyanoacrylate and Gypsum plaster, right?"

"Yeah" he said wheeling his chair around to face her, his eyebrows raised "How did you know that?"

"Ms. Caldwell has a degree in Inorganic Chemistry" Dr. Brennan stated

"How did you know that?" October asked her, a look of shock present on her face.

"Surely you didn't expect me to allow you to work with us without knowing some basic information on your background, " She said this as though it were something that should have been obvious to October.

"Um... Alright then..." October said in a slightly awkward tone, she turned towards Hodgins, a questioning look in her eyes, he simply nodded with a look that clearly stated "yes, she is always like this"

"Could someone please explain to me what is going on" Angela said, startling them, it seemed that they had forgotten that she was in the same room with them.

"Cyanoacrlate and Gypsum plaster, more commonly known as superglue and plaster of Paris" Hodgins explained, effectively ending the awkward encounter between them.

"And knowing the scientific term for superglue and Plaster of Paris is important why?" Angela asked, there was a slight hint of irritation in her voice as she crossed her arms and tapped her foot on the ground in impatience.

"The teeth were glued on" Dr. Brennan said "They were convincing enough to look like teeth upon first sight but only upon first sight, it did not take me long to see that they were not made of bone, though they are well crafted, they had a few flaws that did not go unnoticed"

"Which means...?"

"The skull most definitely does not belong to Dr. Addy"

Angela's face went blank for a second before her expression changed to happiness and the settled into look of dread mixed with slight confusion.

"Angela?" October said, waving her hand in front of her face, she turned to the other two people in the room and asked "This is good news, right?"

Dr. Brennan Hesitated before answering, "Yes... But.. There are complications..."

There was silence for a moment as October thought about that, the questioning expression on her face distorted for a moment before a look of understanding took its place, she had been a bout to speak when Angela said:

" If Zach isn't at dead, and he isn't at the asylum... Then where is he?"

October heard footsteps approaching but she did not avert her gaze from the piece of floor in Dr. Brenna's office that she had been staring intently at for the past half an hour, she heard the footsteps stop and by their distance she presumed that the person had stopped at the doorway.

"Haven't changed a bit have you?" It was Hodgins, she opened her eyes and looked up at him from where she sat on the ground "What do you mean?" she asked tilting her head to one side, her brows furrowed.

"I mean that you are just as weird as I remember you to be" Hodgins explained as he attempted-unsuccessfully- to hide the grin slowly creeping up the sides of his mouth.

"And why, pray tell, are you categorizing me as weird?"

"Dude, you're sitting on the floor cross legged staring at the ground and mumbling"

" It has been a very stressful day, I needed to collect my thoughts…I simply thought that talking to myself out loud wouldn't have been appropriate in such a public setting"

Hodgins rolled his eyes and turned off the portable stereo that October had set on the ground next to her "Where did you get this?" he asked her offering his hand to help her off the ground.

She took it and said "From my bag" she waved in the general direction of a worn out backpack that sat in a crumpled heap in the corner of the couch.

"And do you always keep a portable stereo in your bag?" Hodgins asked with one eyebrow raised.

"I like to be prepared for whatever life might throw at me"

Hodgins nodded slowly and said "okay...Moving on... So when did this happen?" he motioned towards her clothes and dark lipstick.

"When did what happen?"

"When did you become so… Gothic?"

"I am not "Gothic"" she stated simply using her hands to make quotation marks. "Being "gothic" would imply that I am attempting to be a part of a stereotype which I would never do; I simply find that I am very partial to darker colors"

"You'll never do what's expected, will you?"

"Nope, Never."

He rolled his eyes again before saying "Well then, on to more important things. Would you mind explaining to me why you lied to everyone about how well you know Zach?"

"If you explain to me why you didn't tell me that you worked here and why you didn't even show a hint of recognition when you saw me" she crossed her arm as she spoke.

"Well you didn't either" he said this in a defensive tone

"I thought maybe...You didn't want your friends...to know that you knew me..."

"Why wouldn't I want them to know I knew you?"

"It's not unusual for people to be embarrassed by me... I mean you do recall the, er, Bunsen burner incident..."

Hodgins laughed slightly before saying "You mean the one where you nearly blinded your professor?"

"You're forgetting how it was on the front page of every newspaper for weeks..."

"Oh yeah..."

"Well it's not like I knew that he was going to sue..."

Hodgins laughed and put his arm around her shoulders playfully, but their gaiety did not last long, not a moment later they were both startled by the voice of a woman, Angela's voice to be specific.

"Well, well, what's this?" they both sprang apart as they turned around to see her leaning against the doorway, her arms crossed, and one eyebrow raised.

"Well, we er..." October began, she looked at Hodgins who simply smiled sheepishly at Angela "I can explain" he said

There was a short silence before Angela said "well, aren't you going to explain?"

"Right, well...Umm, you see I think that October would be much better at explaining I mean she's been doing that all day, right? " October watched him walked towards the doorway with her mouth hanging open "She'll do much better of a job at clearing this all up than I would have", he slipped passed Angela and walked hurriedly towards his office.

"You haven't changed either, you coward!" October called after him, immediately regretting it, the enormity of the lab amplified her voice greatly causing a few passerby's to stop and stare at her for a moment before they continued on in whatever they had been doing.

She turned back to Angela, who was now perched on the side of the couch "Well?" she said "Is anyone going to explain to me what is going on?"

October sighed slightly; she glanced at the door one more time, internally cursing Hodgins for being such a coward. What am I supposed to tell her?She asked herself, she quickly ran through possibly scenarios in which the conversation could play out.

Yeah, did I forget to mention that Hodgins and I are close friends? How do you we know each other, you ask? Well, I met him through Zach... Yeah that's right, I did say that I had only met him once before hadn't I? Well I lied before... Sorry about that. Well now I guess you're right, that doesn't make me sound very trustworthy, now does it?

The scenarios did not seem to play out well in her favor.

"Well... Hodgins and I have met each other before..."

"I wouldn't have guessed" Angela did not sound amused.

"We have been friends for many years..." she continued, staring at her hands.

"And how did you too meet each other?"

"Well..."

"Well?"

October sighed in defeat "Through Zach"

"So you lied?"

October grimaced "the word lied has such a negative connotation..."

"Lying isn't going to get you in good standing with Brennan you know..."

October didn't say anything; she simply continued staring at her hands, playing with the ring on her middle finger.

"So how close were you and Zach?"

"We were pretty close… Best friends actually" October glanced outside the clear glass walls, she saw a man approaching them; he looked young, and had dark curly hair.

"Who's that?"

Angela glanced behind her briefly before saying "Oh, that's Sweets he's the FBI psychologist"

"What's he doing here?"

"Booth probably asked him to come down here"

October wasn't entirely sure what that meant but she guessed that the reason for Booth calling a psychologist had something to do with her; she might have clarified this assumption, if the man Angela had called "Sweets" hadn't walked through the door at that moment saying "Hey, so what's going on?"

"Hey, sweets" Angela said glancing briefly towards him before turning back to October and continuing in a sly voice "We were just discussing October's secret love affair with Zach"

"That's an extreme exaggeration" October said crossing her arms, her face settling on a scowl in Angela's direction.

"I thought you two barely knew each other" Sweets said "Oh and I'm Dr. Lance Sweets by the way" he extended his hand, which October accepted saying "It's nice to meet you, and I see that you have spoken to Dr. Brennan and Agent Booth"

"Briefly… So you and Zach were romantically involved?"

October made a face before replying "No, we most definitely were not romantically involved, we were however very close, but nothing more than friends"

They both still looked skeptical but October did not feel like attempting to convince them any further so she changed the subject "So, where did Dr. Brennan and Agent Booth go?"

Angela's face darkened slightly before she replied "They went to talk to the victim's parents"

"Oh…Do they have any leads yet?"

"No, But I might have something" October turned to see Dr. Saroyan enter through the clear glass door.

"What is it?" October asked her, she eyed Dr. Saroyan's right hand curiously; she noticed it was clenched into a fist slightly, as though she were holding something relatively small in size.

Dr. Saroyan raised he right hand to reveal that it was clenched around a small plastic container "Dr. Brennan found something when she was examining the skull, it was a the better part of someone's nail, and I was able to get a sample of DNA from it, I just need something to compare it too"

October furrowed her brows slightly "There was someone's nail on the skull?"

"It seems that whoever was, er...eating the victim had tried to scrape the-"Dr. Saroyan began, but she was cut off Angela who was grimacing as she spoke "We get the point" Angela looked as though she might throw up.

"But we don't actually know who we are looking for" Sweets suddenly interjected.

"Actually we might, that was what I originally came in here to tell you" Angela said as she walked briskly over to the computer, she began typing frantically and as she did the large flat screen television in the room turned on.

"I figured that sense the Gormagon has already sent us a skull, discretion in our search was not going to be an option… So I searched the code you gave me from the painting I was given access to the documents and the photos you had mentioned, the photos were clear enough to get a close up on the new apprentice's face, I ran it through facial recognition and I came up with this" Angela motioned towards the screen as a photo of a young blond man with dull eyes popped up on the screen.

The phone on Dr. Brennan's desk rang suddenly and Angela reached over quickly to answer it "Hey, Sweetie, we might have a lead, can I beam you some of the photos? Oh okay, I'm going to put you on speaker now"

She lowered the phone onto the receiver and hit the speaker button before she continued in her explanation "This is Jerry Smith, he's the head of the Smith's Foundation; it's a large charity foundation that works mainly in funding cancer research facilities" she was still typing rapidly as the photos popped up simultaneously on both the television screen and the computer screen.

October heard mumbling in the background of the call which was disrupted abruptly by Booth's impatient voice "What does he have to do with anything?"

"I'm getting to that" Angela said sounding very slightly irritated by Booths lack of respect for her hard work "a couple of years ago he was in a boating accident, it seems that he liked to go fishing, and on one trip he didn't come back. They found his boat six months later deserted" she continued "everyone simply assumed that he fell off the boat and drowned due to the lack of evidence that proved otherwise"

" Could we please move this along Angela" Booth said; October heard Dr. Brennan scold him in the background.

"The time stamps on the photos Zach gave us prove that he is still alive, he is married and has two daughters, maybe you should talk to them" An address popped up on both of the screens.

"Thanks, Angela" Dr. Brennan said, they heard a beeping nose and the sound of the operators voice, which indicated that Dr. Brennan had hung up.

After a few moments listening to Angela's typing Dr. Saryoyan said "That was too years ago" her voice sounded oddly far off "How can we get DNA from a ghost?"

"He is a ghost, but the Gormagon isn't…." They all turned to see October pacing in circles as she spoke, she looked as though she were deep in thought "Which means that we just need the Gormagon's DNA to link him to the case..."

"Dude, I thought you said talking to yourself was inappropriate in public settings" everyone started at the sound of Hodgins voice, to which he replied "What? I can't join the party?"

October ignored his question "I am not talking to myself specifically; I am talking to anyone who cares to listen…." Her voice trailed off at the end as she continued to walk in circles around the small coffee table that was by the couch that Sweets was now sitting on, he eyed her curiously.

"Booth and Brennan talked to the family, they said that they haven't had any contact with him sense the boating accident" Angela suddenly said looking up from a text on her cell phone "There on their way back here"

October looked up towards Angela, she opened her mouth to speak but changed her mind and closed it again; she did this twice more before Angela got fed up and said "Spit it out October"

"When exactly was the boating accident?" October had a strange gleam in her eyes as she spoke.

"A couple weeks after the Zach said that the Gormagon approached him, why?" Angela replied curiously.

October might have answered if Hodgins hadn't suddenly interjected with a surprised look on his face "Wow, he doesn't waste time"

There were a few moments of silence before October suddenly ran over to the computer and pushed Angela out of the way before she began typing furiously; a picture of the painting popped up on the screen, a grid formed on the picture and she began closing in on certain coordinates, she typed in code and the numbers in the coordinate changed to letters.

Everyone stared at the screen as numbers flashed across it and codes began to from along with certain pictures in the drawings decoding themselves in series of zeros and ones, they were quite surprised when they heard Agents Booth's voice "What's that?"

"That was fast" Angela said turning towards them, her eyebrows raised.

"The Smith's live very close to the Jeffersonian" Dr. Brennan explained as she walked over to her desk to see what October was doing.

"A little too close if you ask me" Booth said. He was still staring at the screen; a mesmerized look in his eyes.

"Angela, what do you know about Smith's educational background?" October asked, directing her attention towards Angela momentarily before she quickly turned back to the computer as yet another series of zeros and ones popped up.

"Well, from what I can tell he liked computers a lot, he has several degrees within the field of computer science" Angela replied, she too approached the computer screen to get a closer look at the complicated codes flashing across the screen.

"I know where you can find the Gormagon's DNA" October burst out, wheeling her chair backwards in an attempt to get a clearer view of her audience, unaware of how close the wall was, she ended up crashing into it and nearly falling off her chair, she steadied herself and continued with her account as though nothing had happened "Booth, you said that some of the evidence was missing for the Gormagon's case right?"

"Yeah, the silver skeleton and the dentures" Agent Booth replied, dubious.

"If you recall the other Gormagons pulled out all of their teeth, and then they wore the dentures, which is why the dentures are missing, the new apprentice wanted to wear them when he ate his first victim"

"And so he pulled out all of his teeth" Dr. Brennan finished for her, her light eyes pensive.

October turned back towards the computer screen "Yes, and if you recall the Gormagon had used his teeth in a bomb last time, which means they will most likely pop up some time during this case, and we can get DNA samples from them"

"What, is he going to make another bomb?" Booth asked; a slight urgency in his voice.

"Most likely not, he will however want to connect it to his murders…." An address popped up on the screen as she spoke "in the painting I found this address of this abandoned apartment house, it seemed irrelevant until I did some more research and I found that Smith had been a part of a fraternity in college and they had rented out this particular apartment house…. Now a few years ago there had been a fire, it had indeed been an accident but it the building had been ruined, which is why the city was planning on tearing it down…"

"And you think that smith might have left something of use to us there…" Dr. Brennan said, tilting her head to one side.

"Yes, it is highly likely that we might find the rest of body there…" October leaned back in her chair, her brows furrowed as she tried to figure out some detail that had been nagging at the back of her mind.

"Wait a minutes I just realized something…" Angela said; her voice had an ominous tone to it "Booth you said that the silver skeleton had been taken right?"

"Yeah, so what does that have to do with anything?" Booth replied as he hovered over Dr. Brennan, by now nearly everyone was crowded around her desk.

Angela turned to face Dr. Brennan "Well… If he has the silver skeleton then why did he send us the skull?" Her question seemed to be directed to Dr. Brennan specifically

There was a moment of silence before Dr. Brennan said "Because he wanted us to believe that is was Zach…."

"But you said yourself that the teeth were not that convincing" October said, looking upward towards Dr. Brennan from where she sat on the office chair.

"Because he only needed us to believe it long enough for him to get to Zach…" Dr. Brenna was now quickly scribbling the address on to a piece of paper, she then nearly ran out of the room with Booth trailing after her "Whoa! Bones wait up!" He called as he attempted to catch up to her.

"When are they planning to demolish the building, October?" Angela asked, her face now taking on a grim expression; for she was nearly positive that she knew the answer.

"Today" October said her expression matching Angela's.

Authors note: please review let me know what you thought of this chapter and if you want me to continue.