A/N:Thanks for the reviews, follows, or favorites for this little flight of fancy of mine. Chapter 2 got a little out of control so my 3-parter is now a 4-parter. So, let's dig deeper into the question – is Oliver, or isn't Oliver really human?
Disclaimer: I own nothing Bones related except my imagination. (09/29/2016)
It was towards the end of the next week when Angela Montenegro stood beside her husband's wheelchair in his office discussing their upcoming plans with their son, Michael-Vincent, for the coming weekend. "He has a soccer game Saturday morning, but then his friend Jason invited him to go visit the Newseum downtown. Jason's dad offered to drive the boys. Do you want to go with them?"
"Sure, Ange. That sounds like fun. What're you going to be doing?"
"Eh, the usual life maintenance types of things – laundry, grocery shopping, things like that. Although, if both of you are occupied out of the house, I may try doing a little painting for a bit too."
Hodgins chuckled. "You got it, babe. We'll leave you –"
"Dr. Hodgins? . . . Dr. Hodgins?" he was cut-off by Daisy Wick's excited voice as she marched into his office, back ramrod straight, head held high with chin thrust forward, lips pursed together, and each step a deliberate and evenly paced placement of her feet. Her elbows were rigidly bent at a perfect 90-degree angle and in her hands, she held a silver tray with a specimen dish neatly centered in the middle. "Dr. Hodgins, I need you to analyze this sample right away and tell me what it is."
"Ooookay." Hodgins reached for the specimen dish and rolled over to where his equipment was, transferring the sample she'd brought into a format that would enable him perform his analysis and sticking it into his machine. "What am I looking at here, anyway?"
"I'd rather not say anything, yet. I do not want to bias your objective scientific findings."
Angela noticed how stiffly Daisy was holding herself, typically something the younger woman did when she was upset or emotionally distraught. "You okay there, Daisy? You seem kind of tense."
"I'm . . . I'm not entirely certain," Daisy responded and gave Angela a self-deprecating smile. "I will admit that I'm a little freaked out right now, but I know that my imagination sometimes runs away from me so I'm trying my best not to jump to any conclusions. I tried some of the deep breathing exercises that Lance taught me, but they only helped calm me a little bit . . . really just enough for me to come here and see Dr. Hodgins."
"Hmmm, what the . . ." Hodgins mumbled indistinctly to himself, frowning at his equipment as he pushed a few buttons and adjusted his dials. "That's odd . . . . . mmm, no . . . no . . . not that . . . doesn't make sense . . ."
Angela ignored her husband's grumblings, focusing on Daisy. "What caused you to become freaked out?"
"I can't tell you. Not yet, anyway. I'll tell you in a minute, after Dr. Hodgins gives us his findings."
A couple minutes later, Hodgins looked over at the two ladies, a perplexed frown on his face. "Where did this sample come from Daisy? I've never seen anything quite like it. For the most part, I'd classify it as a sample of blood, but it's not exactly consistent with human blood or any other animal I can identify immediately. There are a couple enzymes here that my state-of-the-art equipment doesn't seem to even recognize, which is very, very odd."
"Oh." Daisy collapsed into the nearest chair, her face suddenly going pale. She started breathing rapidly and fanning her hands in front of her face. "Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. What do we do?"
Angela placed a palm on Daisy's shoulder and gave a quick squeeze. "How about we start with trying to calm down and you tell us where you got this sample and why it has you so freaked out."
Daisy took a deep breath, held it for a count of three, then slowly exhaled before giving Angela a weak smile. "Right. Yes. I'll tell you. Let's see, I was in Exam Room Number 2 with Dr. Wells. Dr. Brennan assigned us a task examining one of the sets of skeletal remains from limbo that the Jeffersonian recently acquired and documenting our observations. It's just a preliminary examination though. She'll study the remains herself after we're done and find whatever we might miss. She's so smart and thorough that way. No matter how hard we look, she always manages to find something we miss."
"Focus, Daisy." Hodgins interrupted. "We all know how good Dr. Brennan is, so get to the point."
"Right. Okay. So, I was standing on one side of the exam table and Dr. Wells was on the other. He was studying an anomaly on the deceased's tibia and he went to reach for a tool from a tray of assorted items, but he didn't look up from the tibia and he accidently bumped the tray, flipping it over. I think he must have instinctively tried to reach for the falling items without thinking about what he was doing and he caught a knife that was falling, by the blade. It stabbed his palm. He made a very strange noise, like a high-pitched gurgling growly-whimper sound, then cursed and dropped to his knees. I looked under the table from my side and he was holding his hand close to his chest, with his fist clenched and it looked like there was something oozing out slightly between his fingers, like blood, only it didn't look like blood. Not really. The color was off. It looked more, I don't know, ginger-colored maybe. I asked if he needed any help and he snapped at me to stay away from him, then he grabbed the knife that cut him, jumped up, and ran from the room."
"Then what?" Hodgins prompted. "Are you saying this bizarre sample you brought me is from Oliver?"
"Yes. Exactly. When he stood up from his crouch, I saw a drop fall from his fist and splatter on the floor. I didn't mention it to him, but once he left, I went and studied the droplet and with a closer look, it definitely didn't seem normal to me. So, I collected what I could, and brought it to you. My first thought was that maybe he's sick and has some sort of secret illness we don't know about which affects the color of his hemoglobin, but then I started thinking . . . what if he's . . . you know . . ." she dropped her voice to a whisper, "different from us."
Angela snorted and rolled her eyes. "Daisy, we've all known that Oliver Wells was different from everyone else from the day we met him. Unfortunately, I don't think being an extreme douche-bag is a medical condition or I'd have forced him to get treatment long before now."
Daisy shook her head. "I don't mean the fact that he's a jerk. I mean . . . think about it . . . he's super intelligent, he fundamentally has no abilities to interact with other people, he has strange eating habits and is always snacking on something with a very high fat content yet he seem to metabolize it just fine, he emits a very subtle yet distinct odor – not really unpleasant per se, but something that always makes me think more of a wild animal than a person, and now we've discovered his blood is an atypical color which contains enzymes that even Hodgins' equipment can't identify. What if he's . . . not human?"
"His eating habits are no worse than Aubrey's," Hodgins interjected.
"That's true and Aubrey seems to metabolize his food just fine, too." Angela agreed. "So, are you suggesting Oliver is something paranormal, like a werewolf?"
Daisy frowned in concentration, nibbling at the tip of one fingernail. "I suppose that's a possibility, but I've always pictured werewolves as dark, brooding men having really buff bodies with lean, cut abdominal muscles, powerful arms, and a chest and back that taper in a nice, symmetrical 'V' shape down to a wonderfully squeezable tight posterior. Agent Booth would be a much closer match to my ideal of a werewolf than Oliver. No, I was thinking Oliver might be, you know, like an alien from another planet."
"Except aliens from other planets don't actually exist, Sweetie."
"I dunno, Ange. Don't be too quick to be so dismissive." Hodgins chimed in. "There's still an awful lot of unanswered questions and speculation about what really happened out at Area 51 in Nevada. There's no doubt in my mind that something went on out there that our government conspired to keep secret. That's probably the most famous cover-up, but there are so many other stories and reports of inexplicable events around the world that you really have to wonder what's real."
Daisy looked from Angela to Hodgins and back again. "What do I do? Am I supposed to go back out there and just . . . just pretend that everything is normal?"
Angela squatted in front of Daisy's chair and grasped her hands in her own. "Look, Daisy, I'm sure there is a perfectly reasonable explanation for what's going on here that we just haven't thought of yet besides space aliens. But, for the sake of argument, even if Oliver were an alien from outer space, which I am not conceding is true yet, it's not like he's ever tried to eat anyone at the lab or control our minds or anything like that, so I'm sure you'll be perfectly safe. When Oliver ran out of the exam room to take care of his injury, he had to go somewhere he could take care of himself and the most logical place is the men's bathroom. Hodgins will go check out the men's room and see if he can find anything else suspicious."
"I will?"
"Yes, you will. In the meantime, you will need to pretend like nothing out of the ordinary has occurred, okay Daisy?"
"I'm not sure how to do that."
Angela studied Daisy for a minute until inspiration hit. "Pretend you're on an undercover assignment, like Brennan does occasionally with Booth. You know how much Brennan enjoys going undercover and you always enjoy the chance to be like Brennan, so . . . look for clues and look for evidence, but stay quiet about your suspicions for now." Angela was hoping Daisy wouldn't embarrass herself too much by claiming Oliver was an alien to all and sundry if Daisy pictured herself on a covert mission to discover the truth.
"Alternatively," Hodgins shrugged, "you can go tell Dr. Brennan that you refuse to work with Oliver anymore because you are convinced he is an alien from another planet. I'm sure she'd understand."
Daisy looked at Hodgins in horror realizing Dr. Brennan's reaction would likely be worse than anything Oliver might subject her to and definitely not understanding. "Pretend I'm undercover on a secret mission. Got it." With that, she jumped up and hustled out of the office, eyes nervously flicking to the left and right like she expected an attack at any minute.
"Poor girl." Angela's tone was compassionate. "I really wish Sweets was still around for her."
"Yeah. Me too. But, I gotta tell you Ange, there is something really, really weird about this sample she brought in here. I mean, it's definitely organic and comes from some sort of living creature, but it's not like anything I've ever seen before and you know, I've seen a lot of pretty obscure things. I'm gonna follow your earlier suggestion and go see if there's anything else I might find in the men's bathroom."
Based on Hodgins' serious reaction, Angela began to have actual doubts for the first time since the conversation started about her preconceived notions and to entertain the idea that maybe Oliver really wasn't what he seemed. "You're really confused about this one, aren't you? You really think Daisy might be on to something."
"I know you probably think I'm as crazy as Daisy, but I've said before that we'd be foolish to assume there isn't other intelligent life out there beyond the limits of our planet. You know how I am with things like this – I won't be able to rest until I figure out what those test results we got actually mean."
"Okay. I get it. I do think you're a little crazy, but I love you anyway. In order to show you my support, I'm going to call Agent Aubrey and ask him to run a background check on Oliver. He owes me a favor since he asked me to poke around in our computer system to see if Oliver messed with anything when they had their video game competition recently. I didn't find anything then, but maybe we should all be taking a closer look."
A/N: Reviews, comments, wild speculations – all are welcomed!
