AN: Hey all, hope you are liking this story as much as I am. I haven't had this much luck with writing in almost a year, so I hope it's as good as I think it is. Let me know in a review if you like it. Anyway, this chapter is 966 words long, and the last of this short, short story. But do not fret! There will be more adventures of Willow to come. Likely some of season seven, perhaps about half before I begin the phasing with Criminal Minds.
A Change in the Line Up
Chapter three
Doctor Brennan was in the Jeffersonian for a grand total of twelve minutes before she left to do only she knows what. Willow hadn't even met the woman yet. That was fine with her though, at the moment at least, this way she could get some solid work done before having the pressure of her new 'boss' hanging over her shoulder. Willow had been tasked with removing what little flesh was left on the bones via an enzyme bath, and she had done so without much thought; the procedure is fairly routine.
Sometime later Willow, Wendell and Hodgins stood in the bone room, each examining the bones on the table. Trace evidence had been lifted out of the fractures to the nasal bones and an extreme close up was displayed on the screen.
"If I can't come up with cause of death, Dr. Brennan is going to throw me into that machine." Wendell announced.
"You're right." Hodgins said, not looking up from the bones.
"You are supposed to say, 'no, she will understand'." Wendell said, panicky.
"But she won't." Hodgins told him, with only a slight glance.
"You know, I'm new, I'll probably catch more grief then you." Willow said from the foot of the table.
Wendell looked at her and shook his head. "This is only a job for you."
Hodgins looked between the two. "She's a Squintern too, Wendell."
And at the same time that Wendell replied, "No, she isn't." Willow said, "No, I'm not."
"O-kay then." Hodgins said stretching the word. In exasperation, Wendell put his hand down roughly on the table. A slight skittering noise sounded, though only barely. "Did you hear that?"
"Only us breathing." Wendell replied as Willow shook her head.
"No, no, no, something rattled in his skull." Hodgins said.
Wendell leaned down to get a better look as Willow came forwards and stood beside Hodgins and did the same. A quick shake from Wendell revealed something to be loose inside the skull.
"Something dislodged in the enzyme bath." He stated needlessly as he shook the pieces out.
"Is that?" Willow asked leaning to the other side to get a closer look at the fragments. Wendell nodded before explaining to Hodgins that the man did in fact die from a broken nose.
Willow excused herself from the main room and ducked into the locker room to retrieve her purse before heading into the cafeteria for lunch. Grabbing a salad with a bunch of fresh vegetables and a bottle of water. Ducking back to the work area, she tried to get to the locker room but was called by Hodgins to go into Angela's office to help try and figure out the murder weapon.
"Do you mind if I eat in here?" Willow asks the office's owner, Angela. "I've always been on a very strict routine, and it's tough to break it."
"Not at all sweetie, go ahead." Angela said. "I'm eating to. Hot sause?"
"I think I'm good, but thanks for the offer." Willow said with a half-smile.
Soon the quartet were set to work, Angela eating her lunch and operating the Angelator and each of the others making suggestions about what could be the murder weapon.
It was only a few minutes before Angela froze. "Oh, my god." She murmured.
"What Ange? Do you know what the murder weapon is?" Hodgins asked excitedly.
"Oh, my god." Angela repeated a bit more forcefully.
"Ange?" Hodgins asked.
"You've been freaking out all day, and when my water breaks, you don't notice?" Angela asked incredulously.
Willow looked eyes wide at the older woman. "Oh!"
In a huge rush Hodgins and Angela were out of the building and on their way to the hospital. Wendell and Willow looked at each other then out the door. "So, what now?"
"Well, I guess you can finish you lunch, I'm going to put the speck through the Mass-Speck." Wendell answered shrugging.
The pair went their separate ways for the time being and life was at a standstill of sorts. There wasn't much to be done in the lab until they knew what the murder weapon was, and the two people most likely to figure it out were out of the lab.
An hour later found Dr. Saroyan, Wendell and Willow back in Angela's office trying to figure out the Angelator. Not that it worked in any way, and only resulted in Angela evicting them from her office via Skype.
They knew that the murder weapon was made of polyurethane, which narrowed the weapon down to a bowling ball. Which in itself was not helpful, and because they couldn't use the Angelator to find out what size the ball was, or how fast it was going, or anything, Wendell had begun doing it by hand.
On the Forensics Platform there was at least fifteen bowling balls laid out while Wendell held a piece of paper and a pencil while talking himself through the math. "Okay, force times mass, times exceleration. To break a nose you need a very low force with a high mass. Say around thirty g's or… no, no, no."
"This is like watching Michelle do her homework." Cam muttered to Willow.
He soon came to the conclusion that, "any mass higher than 2.26kg wielded at any acceleration would be too much." Wendell began another equation. "Two point two six kilograms is…"
"Five pounds. The ball could not have been more than five pounds." Cam answered.
Although it was later realized that the murder weapon was a motorcycle helmet, not a bowling ball, it was a good time for a finish in the day. Booth and Brennan caught the 'shoe guy', the murderer. And everyone, save Willow of course, went to the hospital in time to welcome Michael Staccato Vincent Hodgins into the world.