BONES
As soon as I passed through the lab's door, I walked straight to my office, questioning if I'd heard Cam calling my name a couple of times, but I'm in no mood to care. Dumping my bag and coat carelessly on my desk chair, I swipe up my lab coat without preamble and march determinably towards the bones room where Leishenger's remains await me. Lab coat on, I diligently slide gloves on my hands, before picking up his skull to examine it for the ninth time.
An untrained observer might write off the job as tedious, time consuming and unnecessarily repetitive, but they would be wrong. Bones have many secrets and it my job to coax them out until they tell the story of the victim's life… and death. A miniscule nick, barely discernible to the human eye, could be from an object that impaled the body – a knife, a bullet, a dagger… a piece of rebar – or a relic from when the victim was a child. Does the nick correspond with any other injuries that might suggest weapon or trajectory of the object, as well as any tissue and organs that could have perforated? Which injuries were perimortem , antemortem or postmortem? Were there one or more assailants? Yes, if you intend to do this job correctly it will be time consuming and it will require repeated examinations of the bones. But taxing?
I have excavated mass graves in Chechnya, Tezno, Abul Khasib and Vilnius, where I saw the depravity of mankind and the ravages of war. I have helped identify victims of natural disasters in Burma, Sumatra and right here at home in Louisiana, giving their families the closure I never had… and I helped remove bodies from the rubble of the fallen towers, a manmade disaster driven by intolerance. I've excavated tombs in Bulgaria, my knowledge influential in the identification of a new species and I worked side-by-side with Dr. Reinhard in Llullaillaco.
Taxing? Just the opposite. It is exhilarating. It is challenging. It is rewarding. So much so there are times I wonder if I could take my next breath if I were unable to do this any longer.
My intelligence was all I had left after first my parents then Russ abandoned me. I didn't understand why they left me or the feelings that came with suddenly finding myself alone, but science? Science I understood. Science is logical, it's empirical, it's objective and it's rational. Science has its rules and its laws. Science relies on facts, not suppositions or feelings.
I devoted myself to my studies and collected well-deserved accolades along the way and once I'd earned my PhD's I struck out on my own, which led me here to the Jeffersonian where at twenty-five I became the youngest anthropologist hired to oversee the Jeffersonian's lab. It is here where I developed the reputation as the foremost forensic anthropologist in the world before I'd turned thirty, as I'd planned. And, accompanying those titles came a salary that guaranteed I would never again have to depend on a system or person for my survival… as I'd planned.
Yet, despite my successes I had been growing increasingly restless in the months before Angela, quite literally, fell into my life…
It had been the perfect spring day: moderate temperatures, a soft wind and clear skies. Ironically, much like now, my mind and eyes hadn't been communicating and needing to clear my head, I'd decided to have my lunch in one of my favorite spots: A bench nestled between bushes, the reflection pool only a few feet away. I'd just finished my lunch and was walking towards the Jeffersonian when a shaky voice rose over the lightly crowded path…
"My purse! Help!"
Automatically I swung around to see what the commotion was about. An elderly woman was laying on the pavement, suggesting the man had pushed her down as he'd stolen her purse.
"Hey, you jerk," a tall, slim woman with dark brown hair, protested, "Give it back!"
Impulsively, she lunged for the purse, seemingly surprised to find it actually in her hands. Eyes widening, she pressed her weight onto her heels, fisted both hands around the strap and yanked. To her credit, caught by surprise the ne'er-do-well teetered then stumbled, knocking them both first into her painter's easels then into a pile on the ground. He regained his senses first, pushing himself up from the sidewalk and making a dash in my direction.
"Hey, you owe me for those paintings too, buster!" She tried to grab his leg and missed.
He hurtled towards me and I instinctively stepped into his path. A split second later, with a loud grunt he landed on his back.
"Roll over," I instructed with a tap of the toes of my boot to his side. Back on her feet, she joined me.
"Yeah, roll over!" she repeated, then drew back her leg…
"I wouldn't do that—" I tried for forewarn.
And landed a kick to the side of his thigh.
"Hey, watch it lady! That hurt!" her assailant complained rolling to his stomach as directed, while she danced around on one foot.
"Ow, ow, ow, ow." I bit my lip and crinkled my nose.
"I tried to warn you," I remind.
"She did…" The man coughed and shifted uncomfortably when she plopped herself down on his back.
"Hey, you, one more word outta you and… I'll… I'll…" she cut him off, frowning. "Well, I…I don't know what I'll do but she'll kick your ass!" When he looked at me, I raised my brows and lifted my shoulders then dropped them. The woman looked towards the crowd that had gathered and pointed to a man in his early twenties. "You… Yeah, you. Call the cops and have your friend… yeah, you buddy, take the nice lady back her purse." The two young men looked at each other and with a shrug of their shoulders did as she'd ordered.
"The bones of the foot represent 25% of the bones in the human body. You may have fractured one or more of your metatarsals. You'll want an orthopedist to check it out for sure, but based on the coloring and swelling, I'd speculate you likely fractured the distal phalanges in your right foot here… and here… and the proximal phalanges here," I pointed out while I stooped down to point more accurately. "You'll likely need crutches." She smiles and waves her hand.
"Nah. I'll just tape them together and they'll be fine in a couple of weeks."
"A fractured toe left untreated can mean chronic pain, arthritis, infection, not to mention deformity…" I pointedly looked at her feet donned in flip flops "And given your choice of footwear… -" I frowned and tilted my head "—Which are, by the way, unadvisable given current temperatures – kicking someone isn't wise."
"Angela Montenegro," she introduced herself, holding out her hand to me. "I'm an artist," she nods her head to the spot where her easels still lie in disarray.
"Dr. Temperance Brennan," I offer tentatively.
"Ooooh, a doctor. Tell me you do something glamorous, like plastic surgery for the stars." She tugs my hand and I nearly lose my balance. "Have a seat," she offers, indicating the man's back with her hand. "Something tells me we'll be here a while." I hesitate, for obvious reasons.
"I don't know think we should be using him as a bench."
"Sit." She tugged again. Admittedly I was too curious to leave so when in Rome…
"Alright." I sat down, shifting slightly until I found a comfortable position that also wouldn't inhibit his ability to breathe. He turned his head and smiled, creepily, over his shoulder at us.
"I could turn over and we could all have a little fun." I shrank away from him with a look of disgust on my face. Before I could say anything, Angela reached around me and smacked the man in the back of the head.
"First… Yuck," she was quick to return. "Second, you couldn't handle us." One corner of my mouth lifts slowly. This is what they call in the vernacular 'trash talk' and I've always been quite fascinated with it.
"Yeah, you couldn't handle us," I chimed in. I was feeling quite proud of myself for having caught on so quickly and it showed. Angela smiled in return and flung an arm around my shoulders.
"You know, what Brennan? I think we're going to be good friends."
And we were.
Are. So much so that I care for her as I think one would a sister.
I didn't know it at the time, but meeting Angela would change my life. Almost as soon as we met, she began dragging me out of the lab to go to the clubs, as much to hunt for a suitable mate as to dance. We went barhopping, the point of which I didn't understand initially. Logically speaking, if we stayed at one bar all evening, we could just relax and enjoy ourselves. Moving one to the other then another? It seemed, frankly, absurd. That is until Ange explained it to me.
"Brennan…I'm horny as hell and someone is going home with me tonight. I'm just looking for the right guy."
"Ohhhhhhhhhh."
I'd smiled conspiratorially. The need to satisfy biological urges I understand well.
"In remote parts of Austria, a woman does a dance with apple slices stuffed in her armpits. After she finishes her dance, she presents the apple to the man she desires." Angela turned and looked at me.
"Uh… blech."
"In Colombia, the GuajirAo engage in a ceremonial dance. If a woman trips a man, they must get engaged."
"You're pulling my leg." I frowned.
"Why would I want to pull your leg?" The thought was baffling. She shook her head.
"No, honey. It means 'you're joking."
"Well, then, no, I'm not joking."
"Please tell me you've never tried to pick up a guy using those tribal things…"
I hadn't and the two aforementioned would not be on my list. There are, however, any number of mating rituals that I'd be willing to test out with the right man. My half-smile is quick and brief.
Watching Angela, my restlessness grew. I wanted to do more, give more, live more… But what, how? I had no idea.
At least until the day Booth walked into the auditorium at American University.
"Special Agent Seeley Booth from the FBI."
"I'm Dr. Temperance Brennan of the Jeffersonian Institution."
"Do you believe in fate?"
"Absolutely not. Ludicrous."
The memory makes me smile. The sexual attraction between us was obvious, neither of us trying to conceal our interest. We openly flirted as we worked the case, both of us lamenting the FBI's policy of no personal involvement between agents or with consultants, which, of course, I was. Being fired by the FBI for punching a federal judge had brought with it the freedom to act on our attraction and I hadn't hesitated to point it out…
"If we don't work together anymore, we can have sex…"
…and Booth hadn't hesitated to accept. Then, as we'd stood outside the seedy pool hall with a heavy rain falling, with the taxi honking from the street telling us to hurry up, we'd kissed. The endorphins and norepinephrine that had been released while we were having drink, flooded my system this time, crashing over me like a wave upon the shore. My hand slid beneath his jacket grasping his toned side as I pressed up on my toes, inching closer. My senses were completely overwhelmed by his unadultered scent, the taste of his lips, the feeling of our tongues brushing against each other, his breath on my cheeks and the touch of his hand on the small of my back. Instinctively, I moved closer still. The kiss slowed, grew softer sending a shimmer through me.
"I just feel like, um, this is going somewhere."
No, I don't believe in fate, but I've never found another explanation for what happened that night. Somehow, someway, somewhere on some level – some completely non-sexual level - a part of me had connected with a part of Booth in a way I never had with anyone be—
My musings come to a halt when my eyes and mind finally work together to find what it is I've been missing: A pair of contusions on the mastoid process. It's an injury you wouldn't expect to find in close-quarter combat. But what does it mean?