Well heeeeey, here I am, alive and well! Who knew? I didn't really leave much of an AN in the ficlet this morning as I was in a rush but here: I do exist, I have been able to get four more chapters of this bad boy typed up and will be editing/posting them as I go. I'm sure you loved the wait. This chap's a little longish; the next few notasmuch, but I put some love in. Cheers, and happy new season!
Disclaimer: You can believe me when I say creative control over any given television show is not something anyone should trust me with. That said, the horrific run ons and blathering overuse of commas is all on me, and any grammatical stupidities and pedestrian spelling mistakes are because I've typed this all on a laptop. I don't do laptops. (Yeeah, blame the damn computer.)
It picks you up, and turns you around.
Had the very hand of God (mythical god... mythical) chosen exactly that moment to appear, thereby proving his existence to our heroic young empiricist, her world, though invariably shaken, could not have possibly become bleaker. And then the ventilation and air conditioning failed.
She may not have believed in luck, good or bad, but her theories on jinxes were being sorely questioned at the moment. You see, according to Booth (with his investigative expertise), there is no such thing as coincidence. And at the precise moment that the air system went down, she had been thinking to herself exactly why her day couldn't possibly get worse. So, logically, if she had that thought, and immediately it did get worse, jinxes were a definite possibility. Metaphorically speaking, she had found her 'hand of God'.
This, of course, created two new ticks against her temper: not only had the circulation and cooling failed, but she was forced to question either logic, or Seeley Booth-- yet she trusted both implicitly.
Now, the loss of the ventilation system would not have normally been such a critical issue (over short periods, of course) in the Jeffersonian Institution's Medico-Legal lab, for their subjects rarely held organic matter for long. But this morning, (oh-- this morning), it could prove disastrous. For, though the lab was not, in fact, a morgue, the current case left them with two fresh and fleshy corpses in autopsy and three more on their way in. And since the Medico-Legal Lab was not a morgue, it goes without further explanation that the tissue on the bodies was not intact. In fact, while they had much more tissue than Brennan would handle, they still were far enough beyond recognition (they were sent to the Jeffersonian, after all), and were well on their way into the latter stages of decomposition; all were awaiting attention in Dr. Saroyan's cramped little pathology lab. A lack of air flow around five rotting corpses could prove stifling in the best of times, but add to that a recent heat wave and we find our squints scrambling for sanity, solace, and a breath of fresh O2 ('Please, God, if you really are there...').
The next very unfortunate part of our story is the bit where, as the bodies were found in a moldy, swampy basement, they carried on them a slew of microorganisms just waiting to burst forth and ruin someone's day. Not 35 minutes into the first examination the (venerable) Doctors Addy and Hodgins, in an attempt to uncover an odd bit of bone trauma to the cranium, managed to trip the biological contamination alarm, sealing tight and further stifling this prestigious institution. (If there's one thing never to do with a pack of sweaty scientists, it's lock them in a room together, especially with a few dead bodies.) Poor (dear, unfortunate) Zack was stuck in the back lab with a very edgy Hodgins, as it had been sealed seperately from the rest of the lab in an effort to keep things from further cross-contaminating. Hodgins was edgy only because Angela, who was extremely ruffled, had snapped at him in regards to the safety (or lack thereof) of an experiment-in-the-works, though his mood was furthered by the aforementioned alarm (which he tripped.) Poor Angela was miserable-- to both herself and others, because her brainchild, the Angelator, had been cruelly destroyed by a power surge from an incoming lightning storm. The offending storm, which would have been a godsend were the lab not sealed tighter than a pickle jar, not only took out the Angelator, but the lab's main power as well.
Now, all of that had actually occured about an hour and a half before the air went out, (and then, of course, the alarm tripped), and that hour and a half on generators was likely at least a partial cause of the loss of ventilation. The only good thing about it was that 'would have been a godsend' line, where maybe, just maybe, it would blow away that opressive heat and spare the lab it's slower, longer-term airborne warfare.
Not to mention, the loss of the Angelator (however reparable) happened to occur at quite literally the exact moment that the great machine was rendering the face of their first victim. So while Angela howled like a mother mourning her first born, Temperance Brennan just stood and glowered ('Shall I believe in you now, Fate?'). Unfortunately, her irritation found a home in the equally razzed face of one Dr. Camille Saroyan, who, for reasons previously discussed (reference paragraph three, wherein it is noted that there are two rapidly decaying humans in her lab, and three more en route, or simply, "You want me to chill how many bodies on a backup generator?!", and "Why is this thing not up and running, Angela? We need to get a move on here!", to which Angela only howled some more), was furious.
Needless to say, everyone in the lab was irritable and touchy (barring Zack, of course, who didn't see the logic behind extreme emotion). The case was at a standstill, outside contact cut off, and the air was quickly becoming stale.
And it wasn't even 11 o'clock.
__
Between the warm, stagnant air and the decaying stench that permeated it, to take a breath inside the Medico-Legal lab was opressive. And that was just physically. The interpersonal tension, once you stepped inside, was thick enough to slice through lilke a brick of pure sodium (and thrice as combustible to boot). But none of this could even begin to disrupt the mood of a certain Special Agent (who absolutely would have the kind of timing to show up at the very moment the lockdown disengaged) as he burst through the pnumatic doors with a shit-eating grin on his face.
The place looked like a warzone. Red emergency lights overhead signified the generated power which was still limping along, flashing whites indicated the tail end of a bio-hazard containment. He jogged in, aware of the implications of these markers but unconcerned: to know that he wasn't the only one to have such a miserable morning, and that he'd never, ever been so happy to be among squints was enough to keep that grin holding steady as he approached his partner's office.
"Bones. Bones! Bonesy-Bones-Bones... BONES! Ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-Bones! Oh, Boooooo----"
"What is it exactly that you need, Booth?" Oh, yeah. She was pissed.
"Bones!" He rushed over and grabbed her shoulders, first pulling her to him then pushing her back; holding her at arms length and staring her down (considering, searching, investigating). In her stubbornness, she stared back; after a moment, their eyes met. A moment too long pushed it to awkward.
"Booth, what are you doing, exactly?" She tried desperately to keep the ice in her tone (always an aggressive defense), but it kept faltering (as per usual, what with Booth involved).
"Bones!" He grinned, a natural, entralled kind of goofy grin that he'd surely once used to charm the pants off a few unsuspecting young does, then pulled her back towards him sharply ('Snap a girl's neck, whydontcha?'), wrapping his arms around her in some odd sort of bear hug.
"Booth! What the hell are you--"
"Bones!" he yelled back, swinging her back to arms length ('...and there goes my C2 vertebra'), and considered her once more. "I'm just happy to see you. Can't a guy be--"
He didn't even have to finish his line before she lost the fight. Her shoulders slumped and her jaw relaxed, her eyes flicked away from his and her mouth broke into a grin. Looking back at him, she steeled herself for a last biting remark, "You know, I really think you needed more time with Gordon-Gordon."
A look of mock hurt clouded his face, but cleared as he remembered his mission. "The case, Bones! The case!! I got something! Let's go!"
And that, she couldn't refuse (such a sucker). Three hours of stress and bad luck; three hours of questioning the very core of her beliefs came down to a goofy grin and a childlike excitement radiating from a grown man (there's no way that's right. That can't be right) washing it away like acetone on laquer. Besides. The fates must exist. That face could never lie to me.
PS: anyone else a little miffed at "selfish Bones" last night? There's one S4 carryover I could gladly see go.