Disclaimer: The only thing I own about Bones is the Netflix views I've generated on my phone.
Hannah comes back today. That was probably why Booth walked in the lab with a bunch of coffee for everyone. There was no place he hated more than the Jeffersonian, but it sure did not seem so the way his face was looking. Christmas tree, indeed.
"You're skipping again," Hodgins said as he walked out of his bug and slime and plant room. He was met with a cup of coffee at the entrance.
"How's the best entomologist in the world?" Booth's smile reached his ears.
"Also, best botanist and mineralogist. And I'm very well, thank you," Hodgins laughed at the man. "What happened to the actual Booth?"
The agent rolled his eyes and walked into the autopsy room. "Oh, how I love the smell of liver," he said with disgust, though his demeanor still jubilant.
Camille turned and let out a laugh. "Good morning, Seeley." He set a cup on her desk with a wide smile and stood there like a dog waiting for a treat. "What's gotten into you?"
"My lovely girlfriend–" he cleared his throat. "Excuse me, fiancee, actually, is coming home."
Cam almost spat out her coffee. "Fiancee? What?"
"Yes, I haven't said anything to anyone except Bones so you can't say anything." He smiled.
She stared at him, her eyes blinking as if trying to comprehend the situation before her. "And Hannah said yes?"
"Of course she said yes! I love that woman," he was so overjoyed he could collapse.
"And you've told Dr. Brennan?" He nodded. "And she's…and nothing's changed or anything?"
"What do you mean? She supports it as much as any anthropologist would. She still spits out cultural crap about it, but nothing out of the ordinary." Booth was halfway out of the office. "I'm tellin' ya, she's gonna be the best best man ever."
Cam saw him walk out, awestruck at the news. Seeley Booth getting married to anyone that was not Dr. Brennan cost her money on the Jeffersonian pool. Actually, it cost the whole Jeffersonian staff. It had been going on for the past two years and there were only two people who could win now, Dr. Wells and Dr. Edison. Edison bet she would marry someone else.
And Wells, well, he bet she would marry him when she gets around to it. Cam cringed at the thought.
The Jeffersonian housed the most rational people in the world. Even they felt the universe meant for them to be together.
Ten days this case had begun. And they were ten damned days. Brennan had found new injuries on Gideon, thank the Universe. But they still left her flabbergasted.
"These carpal bones," she aimed the camera on the left set of hand bones. "The pisiform and trapezium. They have these anomalies on them that could only be consistent with constant rubbing," she sighed. "These on the right hamate and scaphoid have similar wear, too. They're all antemortem."
"Something tells me that these two injuries were caused by the same thing," Jessica analyzed. New week, new intern.
"I concur. The similarity is too significant for them to have been generated separately." Brennan looked them over again. "And these–" she showed the intern the bone. "The bases of carpals one and five." She looked at them in thought, but her change in emotion, one that dazzled Jessica Warren every time, showed that she had figured it out. Warren was always amused by it.
"Zip ties." She said as the redhead grew confused. "These markings and the micro-fractures are from zip ties. Look. The measurement of chafing on the bone is consistent with regularly mass-produced steggel ties. It was tightened around here, just above the ulna and radius and he tried to free himself from them. He loosened them somehow, but not enough to get free, so it moved upwards the hand, just underneath the metacarpals and he continued to struggle. The victim was bound."
"Amazing," Jessica whispered as Brennan handed her the bone.
"Indeed," she smiled. "Catalog these and I'll go tell Booth." The doctor slipped her gloves off her hands, almost bumping into a man with a tray of cups.
"Bones!" He enthused. She kept walking, though.
"Hi, Booth, I found these fractures on Gideon's bones. He was bound with zip ties approximately a week before he died. I'm checking in with Dr. Saroyan," Brennan walked fast.
"Alright, but before you go, have some coffee," he flashed a charming smile, one she could not decline.
"Your emotional stability is beyond your norm," she sipped the java as he laughed. "Anything interesting you wanna tell me about?"
"Hannah's coming home, that's all," he was taking steps backwards, encouraging Brennan to continue with the errand to Cam while he darted to her office to wait.
She smiled slightly and nodded. She should have seen it coming, and in essence, she did. It was only rational. She just did not know how much it would affect her, how happy he was with Hannah. Despite that, she felt she mirrored his emotions. Brennan was overjoyed. She loved seeing him like that. His aura was less sardonic and more friendly, less cynical and more altruistic, even. It was a beautiful thing to see.
"Were there any disfigurement on the victim's wrists when you were examining him?" Brennan asked Cam who was typing away at her computer.
"I don't remember seeing any, on either victim." She pulled up a file on both Gideon Caster and Owens.
"There would have been minimal scarring since bindings like those would cause some significant damage," Brennan looked at the pictures and practically took over Cam's computer.
"What's going on? Did you find something new on the bones?"
"Yes, I did." She turned to make eye contact with the other doctor. "The victim's hands were tied together with Panduit strap."
"Zip ties?"
"Precisely. They obviously would not have left particles on the bone, but the victim struggled through them immensely. He would have sustained some sort of blemish on the skin," she was looking at every angle of the victim's wrists through the pictures. "Look, there." She pointed at the screen and enlarged the photo. "There is a faint mark aligned with the position of the pisiform. No one would have noticed that it was anything different from the regular edemas natural to a decomposing body."
"Nice work, Dr. Brennan," Cam said as she saved the picture for evidence.
"I do not remember a time in the Jeffersonian during my tenure when I have produced anything less extraordinary than my usual breakthroughs. Though, thank you, I know that you meant that as a compliment." Camille just shook her head. Brennan's response was expected.
She stopped her before she left. "Hey, Dr. Brennan?" Temperance turned. "Booth told me."
"Booth told you about what?" Her arms found their way on her chest, crossing.
"About Hannah."
"Oh, yes, I heard that she is returning from a weekend in New York."
"No, I meant," the pathologist took a breath. "The engagement."
Brennan did not make an attempt to move or shift, staying casual. Camille was no idiot, though. She saw the nature of her body language, it was of distress and affliction. "I had already known. I thought that it was public knowledge."
"Nope. He's only told us both."
"And Sweets."
"He told Sweets?" Cam thought he would be the last to know. Booth hates how much of a therapist he becomes every time he bore transformative news.
"No, I told Sweets." Brennan let her arms down while the other raised her brows in confusion. "I thought that—considering that he was our psychologist—it was only fair to let him know anytime anything changed in our dynamic."
"I would think that nothing changed."
"That is a correct assumption. I just meant that whenever life-changing appears to have grown in either of our lives that could affect the working and professional relationship we have, that's all."
Cam nodded to placate her, making her walk out feeling that the conversation had terminated. She was no psychologist, but she knew the signs of consternation no matter how solitary and closed-off the person was. Someone even as personally-kept as Dr. relationship was code forintimate partnership.
"I went through the background checks and found this," Aubrey said, handing Booth a folder. "We said Owens was a middleman."
Booth went through the papers, not surprised. "Jared Fields."
"Yep. But here's the kicker," he pointed at something on the paper. "He runs an underground heroin business."
Booth snickered. "What is a man who earns two-hundred K a year doing side jobs to make extra money?"
"I mean, you said it. More money."
"Yeah, well he's an idiot." Booth made a call to get the man in the interrogation room.
"What am I doing here? I told you guys everything," Fields leaned on the back of the uncomfortable chair.
"Not everything," Booth said as he slid a paper of financials in front of the man. "It says here you get about ten thousand in revenue a week. Wanna tell us what that's about?"
"I make some more money doing outside business, that's all." He grew nervous.
"Is that your final answer?" Aubrey said as he fixed his tie.
Jaret looked to the ground, thinking about what to say next.
"Because if that really is some outside business, I want in." Booth joked as the suspect grew even more uncomfortable. Booth grew serious and intently focused on his demeanor. "Look, we don't give a crap about you being a druglord, okay? We do give a crap about the fact that you killed Gideon, that's all."
"I didn't kill him," Fields said, clearly distressed about the accusation.
"You know what I'm thinking? He was gonna turn you in. He was gonna tell that Texas field about you and your drugs."
"Okay, but why would he do that?! He would want me to get that job because he was getting a promotion!"
"Maybe he blackmailed you for that promotion," Aubrey said as he leaned forward on the table.
"No, he did not. He is very capable and very good at his job."
"Or maybe you picked him because he was good business," Booth said as Fields cowered in his seat. "We know he was buying from you. We also know he owed you. You got angry and ya killed him."
"Look, I didn't kill Gideon, okay?! He and I had a good relationship. He came to work on time every day, even filled in for some of the other workers over vacations and holidays. He was a good man." He said the latter with utmost certainty.
"He may have been a good man, but he was an addict."
"No," he sighed. "He didn't owe me money for that."
"Then what was it for?"
"We were good friends. Best friends, even. He needed them for a vacation with his fiancee."
"Damn, you must be an amazing friend," Booth joked again but kept his face serious.
"I just took them out of his pay," Fields said shamefully.
"That, my friend, is illegal. Company money and your money are two different things," Aubrey said straightly. "You want us to get you for murder, illegal distribution, and embezzlement? That's a hell of a rap sheet."
"I owed him my life," he said whole-heartedly. "The man saved my life. The least I could do was give him the money. I couldn't take it out of my own because I'm not the only one running the heroin, okay? The rest would see if the finances were off by even a dollar."
"So you're telling me, you're willing to steal company money for the guy?"
"Yes, I am. I'd do it again in a heartbeat. He took a bullet for me, literally. That was the least I could do." He strained away from eye contact. "I owed a lot of people a ton of money. I would've gladly taken money out of my pay, but I got three kids in college and the rest of my debts to take care of. That's why I need the side business." He sighed. "All he wanted was a damn vacation and I was okay with that. The man was a brother to me."
"He took a bullet for you? Someone wanted you dead?" Booth asked, suddenly twenty times more interested.
"It was four years ago. Some psychopathic environmentalist started firing shots at the offices. Gideon and I were discussing stuff when the man came running in and Gideon shoved me out of the way."
"Can you give us a name?"
"I don't know what good that'll do you. He's dead."
"Didya kill him?" Aubrey asked.
"Man, no. Look, I haven't killed a soul. Gideon got hit on the hip and he couldn't get up so the guy thought he was dead. The idiot also thought he was the head of admin so he felt accomplished having killed him and shot himself in the head." Fields sighed and sat back in the chair.
They walked out of the interrogation room, Booth sighing and Aubrey probably going hungry. "I still think he did it," Booth said.
"You gotta stop listening to your gut and start listening to Dr. Brennan. We don't even have evidence that puts him near Gideon when he died."
Booth and Aubrey walked through the halls to get to Booth's office. "You listen to your gut. It tells you you're hungry all the time."
Aubrey snickered. "I listen to an actual gut, Agent Booth. You listen to a feeling." He said before leaving.
Booth listened to his gut all the time. Temperance did not know that he failed once. To her knowledge, his gut had a perfect success rate.
Nearly a year ago, his gut told him Brennan was in love with him. It failed him.