Well, gee, I am surprised and delighted to find that this story does have an audience after all! Glad to see there are other Doctor Who/Bones people out there, even if you are new to one fandom or the other. :-)

My request is as always: if you follow the story and enjoy it (or even don't enjoy it... who knows?) it's only fair to take a few moments to leave some feedback! I would very much like to hear from you, at least SOME of the time. It's part of what keeps me going! Thanks - you are beautiful!

And we continue...

Chapter 2

The current scene at the Jeffersonian was bleak and rare. Four forensic experts sat on chairs and sofas, facing one another, somewhat slumped down, defeated, saying nothing.

Each felt helpless. None of them had ever been this completely stymied before, and certainly this had never happened to them as a team, with all their various expertise and abilities. They had done everything they could, which was not much, and it had led them back here to the sitting area in Dr. Brennan's office to do what might look like moping to an outside observer.

Angela Montenegro had had almost nothing to do to begin with. Her arena was helping ID the victim, and manipulating technology, but dental records had definitively identified Charles Hasbrook, so no facial reconstruction was necessary. The apartment building's security footage had been cooperatively turned over to the FBI by the landlord Anthony Lind, so no finessing of the camera equipment was needed either. Angela had called the FBI crime lab and spoken to the computer specialist, who had ascertained that the digital images showed absolutely no evidence of tampering. The victim used a cell phone from 2002, very rarely, if ever, and owned a television and cable box, but no computer. The last call he had made had been seven days before his death, to his mother in Milwaukee, and they had spoken for 37 minutes. A junior agent on the scene had figured that out before Booth and Brennan had even arrived.

Dr. Saroyan was useless without flesh, blood, lipids, organs hair, and the like. And they had scoured Hasbrook's skeleton for any tiny sign of skin, organ, muscle, tendon, even fingerprints that might tell them if anyone had handled the skeletonized remains before the forensics team had arrived. Absolutely nothing soft was left on this body. She felt sabotaged by the circumstances, and also was stumped as to how this was even possible, when the victim had been seen by the landlord only ten days earlier, and the building's security footage confirmed it. He had been alive ten days ago, but his bones were picked clean as if he'd lain exposed in the Himalayas for a century. It made no sense.

Jack Hodgins had three doctorates in relatively diverse fields, and even he had nothing. The only spores found in great quantity on the victim's bones or clothing were those contained in the air ducts of the building, and he had been able to determine that with the Mass Spectrometer inside of a half-hour. There had been nothing anomalous about it, no particulates singular enough to warrant looking-into, to determine if perhaps the body had been moved. The bones showed zero indication of insect or scavenger activity, so it was down to the bones themselves, and the bones only.

And yet, even "Bones" herself was unable to glean anything useful. The victim's jaw had a remodeled injury, probably from a hockey stick when he was about nine years old. There were other signs of a typical amateur athlete, the odd fracture here, broken rib there... all professionally-set and remodeled over the years before. But that was all she could find. No nicks on bone, nor any sign of force or struggle. Not even a hairline fracture that might give a peri-mortem picture. The remains had arrived in the lab this morning. The best-trained, most intelligent, field-tested and storied bone expert in the known world had spent eight hours with the bones under a microscope and she had found absolutely zilch.

They had no cause of death, plus a bizarre mystery in which a human body somehow loses all its flesh without rotting or leaving anything behind, all in the space of ten days or less.

It was now nearly seven o'clock in the evening, and the team had convened in Brennan's office to discuss whether to continue tonight, or quit for the time being, and try to get a fresh perspective tomorrow. But all they had wound up doing was venting on each other, whining about the bind they were in, and trying to one-up each other concerning how screwed they actually were.

"Well, what do we do?" Hodgins asked with a reluctant sigh. He'd gotten tired of the silence.

"Let's not forget," Cam offered as consolation. "There's still police work to be done. Booth questioned several people at the meat-packing plant today, and he still hasn't gotten back to us... that might mean he's got a lead. And he said he wanted Sweets to take a swing at the landlord, just to see if he hits on anything..."

"Oh, the meat!" Angela said, sitting up straight, looking at Hodgins with hope in her eyes.

"The meat was non-existent. There was only one large wrapper left in the freezer with some residue having soaked in," he told her flatly.

"And?"

"It was all either beef or pork. The paper used for wrapping matches the paper used in the plant where the victim worked. Totally clean."

"Okay," she said, deflated, sitting back again. "I never thought I'd be disappointed to hear that meat stored in someone's kitchen isn't actually human."

"Still," Cam said. "The fact that a large meat wrapper was in the freezer with no meat in it... that's a clue. We'll have to see what else Booth gets."

Brennan was the only one who stayed silent. Angela examined her briefly. If she didn't know better, she'd swear her friend was pouting.

Cam looked around at everyone and noted the discouraged, half-blank looks on their faces. She announced, "Yep, our brains are fried. I vote we all go home, meet back here in the morning with smiles on our faces and a new pair of eyes on. I'll even get everyone a good, stiff espresso as motivation. Sound good?"

"Sounds good to me," Angela said, getting to her feet as well.

"Yep, I'm down with that," Hodgins agreed, following suit. "I'm going to hold you to that espresso."

Only one person stayed put, in her chair.

"Dr. Brennan," Cam said to her. "Go home."

Brennan seemed to come out of some kind of stupor. "No, you guys can go. I'm going to work a little longer." She now stood up as well.

"Dr. Brennan, come on," Cam coaxed. "All of us are totally baffled like horses with bowling balls - it's not just you. It's okay to take a breather to get a fresh start. Now go."

"I need to call Booth..."

"Booth will tell you the same thing. Go get some rest."

A voice sounded from behind her. "Dr. Saroyan?"

Cam turned. "Hi, Harry, what's up?"

In the doorway of Brennan's office, there stood a Jeffersonian security guard, named Harry. "I have a man here... a visitor. He says he has information about the Hasbrook case."

"Well, who is he?" Cam wanted to know.

"He's from Scotland Yard," said the guard.

"Scotland Yard? Are you kidding me? Did you check his credentials?

"Yes, of course, Dr. Saroyan."

"Is he armed?"

"Er, no, I'm not armed. I don't do armed, I never do armed," said a man with an English accent, stepping out from behind the security guard. His hands were in his pockets, and he was sauntering through the door of Brennan's office. "And believe you me, that big brute has checked. Are you the boss here?"

"Yes," Cam answered. "Dr. Camille Saroyan. And you are?"

"Like Harry told you: Scotland Yard." The man pulled a small leather folder from his pocket and flipped it open for Cam. She took it with both hands and inspected it. She was no expert, but as far as she could tell, it was a legitimate ID badge from the famed British investigative agency.

Cam handed back the man's credentials, then looked him over. He was tall, thin and wore a close-fitting royal-blue suit with dark red pinstripes, along with a navy blue dress shirt and a burgundy and navy printed tie. His hair was dark and thick, and was coiffed so as to appear mussed. His eyes were dark, his facial features sharp. His demeanor, in spite of the occasion, was mildly whimsical, and he seemed to have something of a perpetual smirk. Reinforcing that whimsy, on his feet, he wore red Converse. This reminded Cam of Booth, in the way that he rebelled against the FBI dress code by wearing audacious socks and ties, and his Cocky belt buckle.

"You have information about Charles Hasbrook?" she asked him.

"Yes, I do," said the stranger, and he looked back at the guard, indicating to Cam that the information was sensitive.

"Harry, if you wouldn't mind?" she said.

"Of course, Dr. Saroyan. I'll be right outside."

"Thanks."

The stranger smiled at them all, as if in awe. "So you're the team at the Jeffersonian," he gushed. "Oh, I've read all about you lot. You're brilliant, you are."

Angela, Hodgins and Brennan all stood still, unsure of what in the world to say to this man, whom they had no reason to trust.

"Which one of you ladies is Dr. Brennan?" he asked.

"I am," Brennan said, raising her left hand.

"Oh, now..." he said, stepping toward her. She instinctively took a step back. "You are truly amazing. Truly, truly. I have never met a human being who knows as much about human bone as I do, but I've got to say, you come really, really close, do you know that?"

Brennan opened her mouth to protest, but the stranger had already moved on.

"Dr. Jack Hodgins, I presume?"

"Yes," Hodgins croaked out.

"Three Ph.D.'s, is it? Entomology, botany and geology?"

"Yeah, so?"

The stranger laughed with a sort of delighted "Ho ho ho," and slapped Hodgins on the shoulder. "You're the one who works out where they died, aren't you? This team would be lost without you!"

"Are you here to tell us that Hasbrook was killed somewhere else, then moved to the apartment building, because we've already..."

"No, that's not why I'm here," said the stranger. Next, he turned his attention to Angela. "And Miss Montenegro?"

"Yeah, that's me, and could I please see your credentials as well?" she asked, seemingly unimpressed by the slightly zany British interloper.

The man in the suit dug into his pocket one more time and extracted the small leather folder, and handed it to Angela. She opened it and inspected the badge inside.

Beside her, Hodgins was glancing over her shoulder at it, trying to be subtle.

And he saw something he didn't like. He was unable to hide the catch in his breath, though no one reacted to it.

Angela handed back the folder and crossed her arms over her chest defensively.

"You, Angela... you might be the most remarkable person in this room," he said. "Bachelor of Arts only, no advanced degrees, and yet you are able to run and jump and fly with the best and the brightest, these people who have to have Ph.D.'s to do what they do. But not you! Not you! You give people back their face when someone has taken it away! And it just... emerges from you, doesn't it? From your pen? No Ivy League backin' you up... just you."

He smiled warmly at her, and shoved his hands in his pockets, rocking back on his heels to admire her.

"Thank you," she said, surprised. "That's... that's very kind of you."

"And Dr. Saroyan, of course," he said, turning to greet Cam once more. "The youngest person ever to work as a lead pathologist and coroner in the City of New York. Trained in law enforcement and in medicine... now that is a super-hot combination, if you don't mind my saying so. But I'm not really here to say so, so..."

He turned and walked exaggeratedly around Cam, then around the sofa, and planted himself halfway between Brennan's desk and the door. He took a wide stance and said, "What I am here to say is that your usual methods aren't working because this isn't a usual death. You won't find the truth the way you always do - not this time, not without my help."

"And why is that?" Cam asked.

He made a face as if wincing, and began to pace slowly. "Eh, I don't want to say yet, not until I'm sure. I'm going to need some time alone with the skeleton."

"Um, I'm sorry, Mr. Scotland Yard, but you haven't even told us your name yet," Cam firmly pointed out. "We've had no word from our FBI liaison that you are affiliated with this case - why on Earth should we trust you alone in a room with human remains that are the center of an active homicide investigation?"

He scratched the back of his head and took a few steps forward toward her. "Dr. Saroyan, you have already let me in here because you have absolutely nothing, and I am the only person or thing offering any help."

"Our FBI liaison is still in the field," Brennan interjected. "He may yet..."

"Agent Booth won't find anything," he interrupted. "Sorry, Dr. Brennan, but he's barking up the wrong tree. You are going to need me." His tone was emphatic and certain, his eyes wide, addressing everyone in the room in turn.

The four Jeffersonian experts simply stared at him.

Growing a tad impatient, he added, "And it's going to have to be soon, because the longer you wait, the more danger you are all in."