A/N: Apologies for the short offering—I wanted to post at least something to address the many—and much appreciated—PMs. This is just a prelude to the next date, which I'm really excited about and have already got partially written. Bear with me until I get through Friday and I'll post Date 2 over the weekend. 5 more days of school left!

PS: No song in this chapter, since there's no date.

PPS: On commercial break from the season finale. Booth and Brennan are sitting on a bench, discussing parting ways … AAAAGH! No way they're gonna split! And if they do—God forbid—no way they're gonna do it so calmly!

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Brennan was hunched over Daze Hawthorne's cadaver when Booth arrived at the Jeffersonian late in the afternoon on Monday. He paused to watch her for a moment before climbing the steps. She was wearing heavy-duty, elbow-length yellow gloves, much stronger than the typical latex variety that were probably handed out in every "welcome to the lab, squint" kit. Her hair was wound in a casual bun, held up with a pair of what Booth typically called chopsticks, although he was sure women had some other strange name for the hair accessory. There was no way to tell what she was wearing for their second date—her blue lab coat was buttoned up all the way, disappointingly affording Booth only the merest glimpse of a coral necklace that he knew would look sensational on her fair skin.

Meticulously, Brennan used tweezers to extract invisible fragments of something from the skeleton and held them up to the light. Booth grinned at the trademark squint that followed her visual analysis. Apparently not satisfied, she slid the sample onto a glass side and under a microscope. When she produced her voice recorder and mumbled some kind of scientific gibberish into it, Booth took that as his cue to climb the steps and swipe his card.

The electronic beep alerted Brennan to somebody arriving on the platform, but, typically, she didn't glance over to see who it was.

"Any idea what killed the guy yet, Bones?" Booth inquired by way of a greeting.

"Yes, actually." She adjusted a dial on the microscope. "Though the process has been somewhat complicated without Angela and Hodgins' assistance."

"Their temps not making the grade?"

"I would rather discuss that on our date," she informed him stiffly.

Surprised, Booth shrugged. "Sure." He leaned over her shoulder, fully aware of how much she hated hovering, and whispered in her ear teasingly. "So what have you been able to figure out, Dr. Brennan?"

She lifted her eye from the lens and gave him a baffled, irritated look before gesturing. "Take a look."

Booth obeyed, knowing he wouldn't have a clue about what he was seeing. "Looks kind of like coral polyps."

"It's hemp fiber. Hemp fiber is made of 55% cellulose. According to Hodgins' replacement, the victim was covered in a highly flammable derivative of tree sap, specificallyToxicodendron vernicifluum."

He smothered a chuckle at her stubborn refusal to use personal names for anybody in the lab who hadn't yet passed her stringent requirements. Crazy as Booth was about the woman, Temperance Brennan was likely, by many people's definitions, the boss from hell.

"Unfortunately," Brennan continued, oblivious to her partner's off-topic musings, "Hodgins' replacement discovered the genus of the species when she reacted to the highly allergenic compound in the sap, urushiol, which is known to cause contact dermatitis."

Highly allergic compound didn't sound super pleasant. "And in English that would mean …"

Brennan indicated her gloves. "She contracted a severe case of poison ivy after examining samples from the body without adequate protection."

Booth backed away hastily, recalling an unpleasant encounter with poison sumac as a kid. "Geez! So the poison ivy was so bad it killed him? Can that actually happen? Is the temp going to be okay? And shouldn't you be wearing a mask or—"

"I have had no direct contact with the substance, Booth," she reassured him. "And the worst it could do is cause me a similarly uncomfortable case of urticaria. The substance itself is caustic, but not toxic. Our victim died from something entirely different. There's a significant amount of carbon residue caught in both the remaining sap and the victim's trachea and lungs. It seems clear from the physical evidence that Daze Hawthorne was bound with hemp rope to his skate board in a fetal position, covered in flammable resin, and then immolated." Seeing the look on Booth's face, she translated, "Burned alive."

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

"Whoa." Booth covered his eyes momentarily and cringed. "He was alive and tied to his skateboard when whoever did this cooked him?"

"Yes." Brennan looked pensive. "Interestingly, Angela's replacement had a similar reaction to Hodgins' temp."

"You're saying they both got poison ivy?"

"No. Angela's replacement reacted to oils in the hemp fiber, commonly associated with the practice of bakushi—Japanese bondage."

"O-kay!" Booth clapped his hands. "This is getting' good and kinky! What do you say we go on our date, Bones, and continue this in the morning? Maybe that'll give you time to get hold of Angela and, you know, pick her brains. She might be able to recreate how this all happened and send it to you by text or something."

She considered his suggestion for a moment and, thankfully, didn't argue. "I need to shower and change first. Traces of the urushiol could still be on my clothing."

"Good idea. You go freshen up and I'll pick you up at 6:30. Wear something really comfortable, Bones. Something you don't mind getting dirty. Sandals, or maybe flip-flops, would be a good thing …"