Chapter Eight

"Dr. James, you have a visitor."

"Thanks Lori," Erin said, smiling at the new intern. This girl was very peppy and friendly, unlike Paulo. She was a little overly friendly though. She had a habit of battering on about nothing while she worked, which was fine with Erin since the girl did the work properly and Erin was good at ignoring people, but Dr. Laurence found it an annoying habit. She wasn't sur of Paulo's opinion since he never voiced any.

Erin carefully removed the gloves she was wearing and dropped them into a trash bin.

"No problem," the girl said, grinning.

"Could you please finish cleaning the items in bit number four? Then you can go home for the night," Erin said.

"Sure thing," Lori said, turning to head down the stairs to the basement. Erin sighed when she was gone, then headed to the door of the department.

"Hey, Angela," Erin said, spotting the woman near one of the display cases of old artifacts. "What's up?"

"I used to to think the lab was a depressing place but it's like a cave in here," Angela said, looking around at the numerous towering shelves, which did make the room seem smaller from here.

"There are large windows over the work area," Erin said, shrugging. "It's nicer during the day."

"I'm sure," Angela said in a doubtful voice. "Anyway, I came to invite you to a club with me and Brennan."

"Oh," Erin said, frowning. "Clubs aren't really my thing."

"But it'll be fun," Angela said. "I know this great place down town-"

"You're just hoping that if more people are going, Dr. Brennan won't say no when you ask her," Erin guessed, shifting her weight to one foot with a hand on her hip.

"Wrong," Angela said, grinning. "She's already agreed to go."

"Then why do you need me there?" Erin asked, tilting her head.

"I thought you could use some fun," Angela said.

"Well," Erin said, hesitating. She had been frustrated all week because the photos she had requisitioned still hadn't been sent to her. "I guess I could go. What time?"

"Around eight," Angela said, grinning now.

"Okay, fine," Erin said, resigned. She had planned on hanging out with Zack, as she usually did on Friday's, but he had something school related to work on so she was at a loss. "I'll meet you here?"

"Sounds good. Wear something cute," Angela said, then disappeared through the doors. Erin sighed, but returned to her work.


That night she arrived at the museum five minutes till eight. She had put on some cute shorts and a tank top and had even curled her hair away from her face a little. Hopefully that was enough of 'dressed up' for Angela to be happy with.

"Right on time," Angela said, exiting the building with Brennan just as Erin was about to pull the door open. "You look cute."

"Thanks," Erin said. "Hello Dr. Brennan."

"Hello Dr. James," she said. Erin still felt a little uncomfortable around the woman, mostly because Brennan had a tendency to make everyone around her feel like they were back in school, and partly because Zack looked up to her and valued her opinions.

The club was about twenty minutes away from the Jeffersonian and Erin passed the ride in silence, listening to the conversation between Brennan and Angela about skeletons from WWI. From what Erin was able to gather, Brennan was trying to provide an acceptable argument for why she shouldn't go to the club. Angela wasn't doing much to argue back since they were already on their way there.

The club was loud and crowded, but as all three of them were attractive women with low cut shirts, it didn't take long to get their drinks. Erin downed hers in one go, not wanting to carry it onto the dance floor, where Angela was obviously heading.

They danced for less than a minute before Brennan's social ineptness struck. Erin hadn't heard what she had said over the loud rap music, but suddenly there was a group of people surrounding Angela and Brennan. Erin pushed her way into their circle, not wanting to miss out on whatever was happening.

Moments later, one of the women facing Brennan threw a punch. Brennan dodged it and grabbed the woman's arm, pushing her into the crowd behind them. Angela and Erin both turned to watch Brennan's back, seeing that this was turning into a fight. Angela tripped someone who was circling around, and Erin misdirected a second punch thrown, but was suddenly hit from behind as Brennan practically threw a heavily muscled man into her by accident. She stumped towards a wall, intending to catch herself, but the man stumbled too, and the wall caved in, resulting in a cloud of white powder bursting into the air. At first, Erin thought it was just plaster dust, or something to that effect, but then she noticed the strange taste on her tongue.

The man was pulled off of her and she was lifted out of the wall just in time to hear the screaming start. Her mind, which was oddly focused in the situation, took in Brennan and Angela, both approaching quickly, and the fact that the music had stopped and a crowd had gathered, and that there was a body in the wall where she had landed. All of this information was processed before Angela reached her and pulled her back.

"Try not to breathe any more of it in," Angela said, waving her hand to clear the air in front of Erin's face. "Are you okay? I need some water over here!" The last sentence was shouted over her shoulder.

Erin coughed when she tried to respond, and then couldn't stop coughing, her throat burning from whatever she had inhaled. She accepted the cup of water from Angela when the other woman shoved it toward her and downed the whole thing.

"What happened?" Erin asked when she was finally able to speak. Her heart was racing, probably from the coughing. "What was that?"

"Meth," Angela said, then chuckled as Erin's eyes widened. "You got quite a bit. Do you feel okay?"

"I feel… really energetic," Erin said, looking back towards the wall.

"That happens," Angela said, looking up at Brennan's voice as it got louder. Brennan was obviously shouting that everyone needed to back away so the remains weren't compromised. Erin might have followed those directions, but now that the air was clear again she could get a clear view of the body. Usually, she didn't like the idea of freshly dead bodies, but this one was different.

"Wow," she said, taking a few steps closer to peer into the wall. "He's been almost perfectly mummified. The Egyptians would remove the internal organs, give the body a cedar oil enema and then rinse it with wine and cover it with salt, but that isn't what was done here. "Oh!" She said all of that in a very fast voice, but both Angela and Dr. Brennan were listening intently. "Feel that?" She had just stepped in front of the opening in the wall. She held her hands up as a draft came through the opening. "There must be a dry air convection behind the wall. That's probably what removed all the moisture from his body. How interesting!"

"Yeah, so interesting," Angela said sarcastically.

"I can't judge a time of death at this juncture," Dr. Brennan added. "I'll need to wait for Hodgins to get the insect activity. Have you worked with a lot of mummies before, Dr. James?"

"I'll call Booth," Angela said, shaking her head at their conversation.

"None so modern," Erin said, her eyes coasting over the body again. "The ones I'm used to seeing are thousands of years old. I can say for sure that this wasn't a ritualistic killing. None of the organs were removed and the positioning is all wrong. It's likely that the body was simply left to decompose and the mummification happened accidentally. It's still fascinating though."

"Would you like to help us analyze the remains when we get them back to the lab, Dr. James?" Brennan asked, nodding along with Erin's assessment.

"I'd love to," Erin said, then frowned. "I'm not sure I'm qualified though."

"Who better qualified to examine a mummy than someone with a doctorate in mummies?" Angela asked, returning in time to hear the end of the conversation. "The FBI is on the way."

"My doctorate is in Egyptology, not mummies," Erin said, frowning. "A very small portion of my studies was focused on mummification. I meant that I don't think I'm qualified to work on a murder case."

"We don't know that it was murder yet, Dr. James," Brennan said, crouching down to get a better look at something in the wall.

"All the same, my point still stands," Erin said, spotting a tall guy in a suit approaching the area. "I think the FBI is here."

"We can bring you into the lab as a professional consultant and the FBI can run their background check later," Brennan said, but she didn't seem to be paying attention any more.

"If you don't mind than yeah, I'd love to get a closer look at him," Erin said, standing on her toes to peer around Brennan.

"Ma'am, I'm going to have to ask you to clear the premises," the tall guy in the suit said, getting Erin's attention. She glanced around, noticing that the crowd of people had been sent away as well.

"Agent Furst," Dr. Brennan said, turning to face the man. "This is Dr. James, she is helping with this investigation."

"You are not in charge of this case, Dr. Brennan. This is a matter for the FBI," he said, face straight. Erin rolled her eyes, then stepped around him to stand beside Dr. Brennan. "Cordon off this area boys."

"Absolutely not," Dr. Brennan said, stepping forward. "Anything you do may compromise the remains." One of the men ignored her and she grabbed his arm as he passed, twisting it around, then shoved him into the second guy.

"Dr. Brennan!" The agent said indignantly. "You cannot assault a FBI agent."

"And you can't compromise these remains," she replied.

"I want to be her when I grow up," Erin said to Angela, who had come up beside her. "She's so badass."

"I think you've inhaled a bit too much," Angela said, grinning.

The rest of the lab team arrived at the same time Booth did, and Dr. Brennan excitedly showed all of them the mummy, then forced Erin to repeat what she had said about the mummification process earlier. After that, Erin went back to the bar to get another glass of water as her throat was beginning to burn again.

"Erin, Agent Furst is going to take us to the hospital,: Angela said, calling her over.

"Why?" Erin asked, looking back towards the body. "I want to stay and-"

"You inhaled a ton of meth," Angela said, taking her arm and dragging her away from the group. "The paramedics said that everyone affect should go get tested for the levels in their blood just in case because there might be a lot of side effects."

"Does Dr. Brennan have to go?" Erin asked, seeing the other women crouching near the body.

"No," Angela said, grinning. "None of them want to force her since she seems to be an attacking mood."

"Can we go back to the lab after the hospital?" Erin asked, still frowning. "I want to be there when they bring him back."

"Of course you do," Angela said, rolling her eyes. "You know, I almost thought you were normal, but you are just like the rest of them. Obsessed with death."

"I'm not obsessed with death," Erin said, letting Angela lead her out into the parking lot. "I'm just interested in the mummification process and anything else related to ancient Egyptians. They had a fascinating culture."

"Yeah, okay," Angela said, shaking her head again.


The hospital released them half an hour later with a list of warning signs to look out for. They had wanted to keep Erin there until her heart rate slowed, but she insisted that she felt fine. They may have still kept her, but Angela promised to keep an eye on her.

They arrived at the lab before Brennan or the body, so Angela took the opportunity to show her around the place, pointing out everyones usual stations and work areas, then giving her a basic rundown of what some of the equipment did.

"We use one of these too," Erin said, pointing to the mass spectrometer. "For carbon dating particulates we take off our artifacts."

"Exciting," Angela said dryly. Erin grinned at her. "Oh, the body's here. I'll be in my office."

"Bye Angela," Erin said, smiling. "Thanks for inviting me out tonight, it was fun."

"Yeah well doing meth wasn't exactly my plan for a good night," Angela said, retreating into her office.

"Oh good, you're here Dr. James," Dr. Brennan said, coming through the lab door s and spotting her immediately.

"Have you worked with mummified corpses before?" Erin asked, following the woman up onto the platform where some technicians were carefully unloading the body.

"A few times, but never one so modern," Brennan said, holding a box of gloves out to Erin. She took them, then tied her hair up before putting them on. "I have studied mummies discovered in a mine in Siberia which were preserved through exposure to salt in the mines, and I analyzed remains in Siberia discovered on the Ukok plateau in the Altai Mountians near the Mongolian border."

"The saltmen and the Ice Maiden?" Erin asked, recalling her own studies of the areas.

"Very good, Dr. James," Brennan said, still crouched over the bones. "Have you seen those remains as well?"

"No," Erin said, standing back from the table so she wasn't in the way. "I've read extensively about both though. My department is made up of mostly privately funded studies and as I was only an intern until recently, I haven't had the chance to study the actual mummies."

"It is a fascinating study, if you ever get the chance to do so, you should," Brennan said. "What do you make of the structural quality of the skin?"

"It looks well preserved. I don't think it's too dry to work with since it lasted the journey here in good shape," Erin said, following the change of subject almost as quickly as Brennan had changed it. "Were you thinking of rehydrating the flesh?"

"Just the hands," Brennan said. "For fingerprints so we can get an ID."

"I'm not used to working with specimens that we are able to disassemble," Erin said, gently touching the dried skin of the hands. "Do you used a saline solution for rehydration?"

"Have you a different suggestion?" Dr. Brennan asked, softly twisting one of the arms so the hand was held away from the body.

"We use fabric softener," Erin said, chuckling. "But we usually only work with very small parts of skin and that is a rare occurrence."

"Zack," Brennan called over her shoulder, and Erin turned in surprise. She hadn't heard anyone else come up behind them, but Brennan's team was standing there waiting for instructions. "I want x-rays of the remains, then you can remove the hands and soak them in a concentrated saline solution."

"Yes, Dr. Brennan," he said, leaving the station.

"Dr. Hodgins," Brennan said, waving the man forward. "Swab for particulates and insect activity. The sooner we are able to ID this man the better."

"I could try to make a sketch of him from the remains," Erin said at the same time Angela spoke.

"I need the skull for a facial reconstruction." They looked at each other, then smiled.

"Sorry," Erin said, putting her hands up. "If that's what you do then I'm sure you are better at it than I am. I just do it for fun."

"With the skin on?" Angela asked, looking mildly disgusted.

"The mummies I work with aren't the kind you can take apart," Erin said, shaking her head. "I usually draw out a sketch of what they might have looked like before the mummification process based on their underlying bone structure and their clothing."

"Clothing?" Angela asked. Erin went to stand beside her as Brennan continued looking at the body.

"I can usually estimate their body size by the clothing they were buried in and the way the skin has dried over time," Erin said, shrugging. "I don't know how accurate I am since the only thing I have to base my drawings on are old paintings."

"Why don't you try it on this guy?" Angela said. "Once Dr. Brennan has the skin removed I don't think you are going to have much to do. We can compare your drawing to mine when I get the skull."

"Well since I don't feel tired in the slightest maybe I will take you up on that," Erin said, grinning. "I don't have any materials here though. Can I borrow some of yours?"

"Sure," Angela said, leaning back against the platform railings.

"So do you do any art besides drawing people's faces?" Erin asked, watching as Zack came back and pushed the body on it's table into a different room to get x-rays.

"I used to do more than I do now," Angela said, shrugging. "All the paintings in my office are mine, and I have more at home."

"That's really neat," Erin said. "I was interested in art when I was younger but my parents said I would never be abel to make a viable career out of it so I wasn't allowed to take many classes. I just sketch for fun mostly. I've never tried painting."

"It's fun," Angela said. "Maybe you could come to my place sometime and I could teach you."

"That sounds like a terrible pick up line," Erin said, chuckling. "But yeah, that you be fun."

"My pick up lines are never terrible," Angela said, winking before she disappeared into her office. Erin chuckled, then turned back to watch the proceedings. The lab was much more comfortable to be in now since it was very late and nearly empty.


"Okay, it's a lot harder using modern clothing as a specification, but here's what I came up with," Erin said, holding up her sketch nearly forty minutes later. Angela came over from her desk to get a closer look.

Erin had left the lab platform about five minutes after Brennan declared that the flesh could be removed, saying that she didn't know very much about bones or murder cases, and had spent the remaining time in Angela's office, working on her sketch from memory and from a couple photographs of the body.

"Nice," Angela said, looking over the drawing. "You have some real talent here. We'll see how close I can get it once Zack is done putting the tissue markers on the skull."

"Do you mind if I look around your paintings while we wait?" Erin asked, setting the sketch on the couch.

"Go ahead," Angela said, returning to her computer.

Erin walked slowly around the room, her eyes coasting over the paintings one by one. There were a lot of them here, stacked over each other against the walls. As she looked, Angela finally received the skull and began using an electronic sketching pad and a bunch of other technology Erin didn't know how to use to get a composite f the skull, then the muscles, then the face, all displayed on a matrix style projecting table. The whole process took less than ten minutes.

"This is amazing," Erin said, her interest fully caught by the image forming above the table. "You designed this?"

"Yeah," Angela said. "I call it the 'Angelatron'."

"Great name," Erin said, walking around the table to take int he image from all angles. "And I thought drawing was a good hobby."

"Could you get Dr. Brennan please? She'll want to see," Angela said, changing some settings on her computer pad.

"Sure," Erin said. She had gathered not only Dr. Brennan, but the others in the lab as well within a couple minutes.

"Stress markers indicate he was approximately 160-180 lbs, and about 5'10" tall," Zack said, reading off a paper in his hands. Angela readjusted something on her program and the face filled out a little more.

"Good, Angela," Brennan said. "We can run him through the missing person's database in the morning. For now, everyone go home and get some sleep." She turned and left the room, followed by who Erin had been told was Agent Booth from the FBI."

"Want to compare your sketch," Angela asked, grinning at Erin. Erin retrieved her drawing from the couch and held it up in front of her and Angela.

"I guessed he was 190lbs, but that was a bit high. His clothes were so baggy it was hard to tell," she said, but grinned anyway. "I got his cheekbones and eyes right though."

"This is pretty accurate," Angela said, nodding, then she chuckled. "If you ever give up this crazy doctoral work you could come work for me as an assistant."

"If my job ever becomes obsolete I'll let you know," Erin said, shaking her head.

"Why are you guys still here?" Angela asked, shutting down her computer.

"We weren't sure who was taking Zack home," Hodgins said with a wink in Erin's direction.

"I can if you want," Erin said, looking to Zack.

"Sure," he said, shrugging. Hodgins chuckled, but left the room without further comment.

"Bye Angela," Erin said, waving to the woman. "See you later."

"Bye," Angela called. Erin and Zack left the lab, heading toward the parking lot.

"Are you sure it's safe for you to be driving?" Zack asked as they climbed into her car.

"Why wouldn't it be?" Erin asked pulling the door closed.

"Because you are high on Meth," Zack said, rolling his eyes.

"It's starting to wear off," Erin said, though she wasn't sure that was true. "Maybe if you learned how to drive I'd let you drive home but since there aren't any other alternatives theres no point in speculating."

"True," Zack said. Erin smiled. She liked winning arguments with Zack, mainly because he actually let her win when she was right instead of dragging the argument out to save his pride like most people did.

"Did you actually want to go home or did you want to come over?" Erin asked as she drove.

"If I chose the second option does that mean we will have sex?" Zack asked. Erin chuckled.

"We don't have to have sex every time you come over," she said. "You could just stay over."

"Why?" He asked, but she could tell he was actually wondering, not trying to be hurtful.

"Because sometimes the presence of another person is soothing," she said. "Like after finding a dead body in a wall at a club."

"My personality has never been described as 'soothing'," he said.

"Well it is, sometimes," she said, losing interest in the argument.

"You find my presence soothing?" He asked, voice confused. She sighed.

"Yes, I just said that," she said. "Sometimes it's nice to just be around someone you trust. Not everyone is as comfortable around murder victims as you are."

"We don't know that he was murdered," Zack said. Erin sighed and shook her head. He really was obtuse at times.

"Do you want to come over or go home?" She asked again. "We can have sex if you want to."

"I would like to come over," Zack said. She nodded to herself. She didn't really want to be alone when she tried to go to sleep tonight after seeing the dismembered hands and, maybe worse, the actual face of the victim. It was unnerving to think about since she was used to people who had died thousands of years ago, not people who had been alive recently and still had families. She knew that she would have trouble getting to sleep tonight since movies like that always kept her up. Once her mind had a chance to catch up with the day.

"Are you upset?" Zack asked, glancing over at her.

"No, why would I be?" She asked.

"You are driving much too quickly, you're tapping your fingers, and you are scowling," he said, frowning.

"Oh," she said, easing her foot off the accelerator. "I didn't realizing I was doing that. Good job reading body language."

"So you are upset?" He asked, frowning deeper as she turned onto the street her apartment was on.

"I'm not upset," she said. "Not about anything important anyway."

"Angela says that people usually like to talk about it when they are upset," Zack said.

"That's because Angela is very social and extroverted," she muttered. "I'm fine, Zack."

"Okay," he said, turning back to look out the front of the car.

They arrived at her apartment and Erin was surprised to see a blue piece of paper taped to the door. She hadn't seen one of those in over a month, not since she had lost her temper with her mother. She set it not he table without reading it. She didn't want to be in a bad mood tonight. She left her things by the door, shivering a little as she finally began to notice how cold it had gotten outside. She turned the thermostat in the hallway up a little, then listened as the heat kicked on. It was still early October, but she was suddenly freezing. Zack followed her into her room, used to being here by now. She dug through her dressed to find warmer clothing to sleep in, then turned to him, surprised when he was much closer than expected. He usually let her initiate their sexual encounters, only progressing as far as she did first.

Today he reached out to her first, pulling her closer to him in a hug. She relaxed against him, pleasantly surprised at the action, and wrapped her arms around his waist.

"I'd like to know what's upsetting you if I had something to do with it," he said softly, one of his hands running back and forth across her shoulder blade. She sighed, and smiled.

"You didn't," she said, then pulled back. "It's stupid really. I'm just not used to working around bodies that are… recent. It's a little bit unnerving to think about."

"Oh," he said, nodding. "I understand. It took a while for me to get used to as well."

"Really?" She asked, looking up at him now. He just nodded, then turned back to the door to turn the light off. He tugged her into the bed a moment later, but his hands wrapped around her stomach and didn't deviate an inch up or down as he tugged her back against his chest. She sighed, letting his warmth wrap around her and then, despite her earlier worrying that it would be difficult to sleep, she was out within moments.