Chapter 41 Blood
The Federal Employees Credit Union was sponsoring a blood drive. Cam was approached to approve the Jeffersonian staff, interns, and scientists participating if they wished. Cam herself was personally slender enough that attempting to donate blood in the past had made her faint dead away, frightening the technicians who told her some people below the acceptable body weight can tolerate blood donations but assured her that she didn't fall into this category, and to refrain from trying again. For that reason she called a quick meeting in her office and informed her crew that they were free to donate but made it clear she would not appreciate them missing work due to passing out.
She knew the FBI was participating, and that Seeley Booth would be the first in line. Some years before, the FBI itself had sponsored a blood drive and Booth had been razzed unmercifully for not pushing his department over the top. He never mentioned that he had already donated his maximum to help a friend suffering with leukemia. Just as he had quietly organized the fund-raising carnival for neurofibromatosis research at Washington's Children's Hospital, while telling Bones not to divulge his project to anyone. Cam knew her friend of 20 years took to heart the exhortation in Mathew 6:3, not letting your left hand know what good your right hand is doing. She wondered how Dr. Brennan, as pragmatic as she was, would view the blood donation drive being held during work hours. She imagined that Temperance might fret that it was taking time away from their most critical work. Brennan, she knew, was fiercely passionate about restoring identities for lost souls to give their families peace and solving the crimes whose perpetrators sent a steady stream of cadavers to her lab. She was as passionate as Booth about giving justice to murdered citizens.
Cam was not surprised when the male interns and Dr. Hodgins volunteered immediately. She was a bit amazed when Angela signed up. Michael Vincent was old enough that she was no longer nursing him, but Angela was more squeamish than the others, and Cam silently applauded her fortitude. Dr. Brennan would probably have donated out of both arms simultaneously if that was allowed, in order to do her fair share efficiently and return to her work forthwith.
Cam mused to herself, as the others left her office, that blood was a marvelous thing. It powered the human body, provided proof of family relationships and lineage, outted the drug users in society, restored health to ailing patients, and gave her people clues to how a violent death might have occurred. Yes, she smiled to herself, the human body itself was beautiful and amazing, even if it lost its appeal when it began to decompose. And then, taking a deep breath of the clean fresh air in her office, she stood up, squared her shoulders, and strode out the door. She had an appointment to keep. For over in her autopsy suite, another person awaited her skill and insight to divulge his last secrets. She thanked her lucky stars that the Jeffersonian air filtration system was so very effective. She had become inured to unpleasant odors during her medical career, but that didn't mean she relished them.