Dear Reader, you are still not too late to turn back now and spare yourself the misfortunes of this fan fiction.

If you would be interested to know, as many would not be in this terrible tale, I have confirmed that this story takes place in Season Five of Bones; therefore, you will find that Vincent Nigel-Murray is the intern.

If you do not enjoy facts about crows, arguments about adoptions, or stage makeup, please depart from this chapter immediately.

Dismal Disclaimer: I, the author, do not own either of the frightful fandoms, but the thing I do so happen to "own" is the pernicious plot bunny. Pernicious is a word which here means "extremely harmful, deadly, fatal."

The Snicket in the Sand

Identifying the Victim

Back at the Jeffersonian Medico-Legal lab, intern Vincent Nigel-Murray was analyzing the semi-flesh skeleton. Dr. Hodgins swiped his ID card and walked up onto the stage by the intern.

"So, this guy was dumped in the middle of the desert to be eaten by crows?" the entomologist asked rhetorically. "Dude, that's harsh, but I've seen weirder and harsher I guess."

"Dr. Hodgins," Mr. Nigel-Murray greeted formally with a small smile, holding his tools in hand. "Were you aware that crows…have their own unique dialect, and those dialects differ between regions."

"Um…okay?" Hodgins answered with a crooked smile, eyebrows raised. Vincent put the tools down on the table and ran his hands over his jacket.

"Forgive me, the whole crow talk has been feeding my fact-imbued mind incentive to think of said bird-related facts. Would it interest you to know that a group of crows is called a murder? Quite humorous actually, isn't it, because of the fact that they were found at the murder scene?"

Hodgins grinned. "I admit the 'murder' thing gets me, but try to keep the spouting at a minimum?" Vincent nodded, and Hodgins went over to a computer, silently gesturing for Vincent to follow.

"I found traces of steel and slight carbon in the particulates that Cam picked out, suggesting that the weapon used to stab the victim here was a kind of metal instrument, blade or knife, I'm not sure of yet."

"Dr. Brennan noted that the marks in the victim's sternum were jagged, could it be that the weapon could have been a long serrated knife?" Vincent questioned aloud, glancing at the entomologist, who stared back in equal puzzlement. "Though, Dr. Brennan doesn't like us to jump to conclusions, I'll wait until she gets here to see if her observations align." Hodgins nodded.

"I also found some odd residue on the particulates. I'll run it through the mass spec to see if it gets any hits!" he said as he went towards his office to analyze the residue.

Meanwhile…

On the way to the lab from the crime scene, Agent Booth and Doctor Brennan were in heated discussion, having not dropped the topic as Booth had suggested.

"I don't understand! Why are you getting upset over this Booth?" the anthropologist growled, irritated at her partner's displeasure of her decision. "I've thought about this for some time now and I believe it is a rational thing to do in this point of my life!"

"You don't get it Bones! Your decision is the opposite of rational, it's crazy!" he rebutted. "I don't think you thought this through at all, what were you planning to do just buy up a whole orphanage and train them as your orphan squints?"

"No! That scenario is highly illogical, it doesn't even make sense!"

"Great, now my coffee's cold, are you happy Bones?"

"Why would I be happy about your low temperature coffee?"

…and so the argument continued until they reached the lab.

Back at the Jeffersonian, Cam was almost done removing the flesh from the skeleton and Angela approached, grimacing at the dead body, as per usual.

"Angela, I'm almost done here, then you can do a facial reconstruction to ID the victim," the former coroner stated, without looking up. Angela smiled grimly.

"Sure thing, Cam," she replied, then leaned on the railing next to the table. "Brennan told me the other night that she was thinking of adopting soon. Who woulda thought? I mean first Booth's sperm now this."

Cam looked up from the tissue and grimaced in slight shock. "Seriously, filter information, murder investigation here!"

"Sorry."

"But I do agree, it is oddly out of character for Dr. Brennan, I wonder if it this has anything to do with that whole event," Cam added afterthought, finishing removing the flesh. Underneath the flesh of the head was an intact skull, and Angela took it to place facial markers.

"I'll have a face for this poor guy in a little bit," Angela said, departing for her Angelatron to do its work. Dr. Brennan entered the lab and met up with Vincent in the bone room to examine the now-flesh-free skeleton.

"Dr. Brennan, I've noticed that the cuts in the sternum left striations around the areas on the bone, suggesting that the murder was hastily executed, the marks aren't precise either," Vincent relayed to his supervisor, who simply nodded, looking at the areas he mentioned.

"I would agree, Mr. Nigel-Murray, with your conclusion; however, I suggest we wait until more evidence has been evaluated before relying on that theory," she replied simply, and the Brit took this as an indirect compliment, briefly smiling.

"Would it interest you to know, Dr. Brennan-"

"If it does not pertain to the case Mr. Nigel-Murray, then no."

There was a brief period of silence, in which the intern reflected on the fact he was about to relay, then his breath hitched in realization and he nodded.

"Thank you for your restraint Mr. Nigel-Murray, now would you take a look at the patterns on the L-2 and L-4 vertebra?"

At the J. Edgar Hoover FBI Building…

"So….you're worried about Dr. Brennan, seeing as this kind of decision is not one she would make without plenty of consideration," Dr. Sweets said, walking beside Agent Booth to the agent's office.

"Exactly, she's just flying off the handle and she's putting herself in trouble," Booth replied as they reached the office.

"That's reasonable enough, but you claim that she believes she's thought this through, in which case I'm inclined to believe her. In the scenario she has put much thought and afterthought into adopting, what is your reasoning for being against that Agent Booth?"

Booth was stunned for a moment, then once the question had fully sunk in, his face darkened, as in "I'm really pissed you asked that so I'm just gonna be deathly silent so you will skip the conversation."

Luckily, Lance Sweets was no fool and in his experience with Agent Booth, this look he was receiving was serious. He sighed in defeat and leaned against the doorway.

"So, what's the deal with the victim?" the shrink batted out after a few minutes. Booth then got a text and checked his phone.

"Angela's IDed the victim, I should get down to the lab," he replied briskly.

"I'll come with you!"

Medico-Legal Lab…

As the others arrived, minus one Jack Hodgins, Angela pulled up the digital reconstruction of the victim's face.

"I ran this image through the database and I found this," Angela said, pulling up the file on the screen. The group of scientists and agent and shrink stared for a while before Cam spoke up.

"Jacques Snicket?" the coroner wondered aloud. Angela nodded.

"And get a load of this, you won't believe it," she added as she pulled up an old newspaper file that read The Daily Punctilio.

"'Murderous Orphans At Large: The Death of Count Omar'?" Dr. Brennan read off of the top heading.

"The image given with the newspaper matches Jacques's face, but this name 'Count Omar' is completely random. I doubt this reporter knew what they were talking about. But get this, he was killed at that VFD place, where those crows were from! And apparently those orphans in the article were being raised there by the village as their guardian, how weird is that?"

Hodgins ran in the room with urgency written in his expression, but a smile on his face.

"I got the results from the mass spec on that residue I found on the particulates," he announced, putting the image on the screen beside the reconstruction of Jacques's face. "It contained high amounts of petrolatum and propylene glycol, two chemicals commonly found in-"

"Stage makeup," Bones finished, to which Hodgins pouted. "I remember having to use it when Booth and I went undercover at the circus for the Siamese twin case."

"So unless these Baudelaires are travelling performers, they're not our suspects," Cam pointed out, to which the group nodded.

"The Baudelaires were framed!" Dr. Brennan exclaimed, glancing at the 'mug shot' of the three on the newspaper.

Booth didn't like the look on his partner's face when she looked at the orphans, and he had a strange feeling he knew what she was thinking.

If you have any ounce of sanity, you would find yourself looking at this story in disgust and encouraging others to stay away from it, denying that you yourself even read this far into it.

It might interest those of the insane type in that case, that the context clues imply that the unfortunate Baudelaire orphans will make an appearance soon, and perhaps, even be shown great fortune in the care of Dr. Temperance Brennan.

But don't be fooled, dear reader, there is no lying, this story is an unfortunate one, even going so far as to bring this author into the "Lemony Snicket" persona.

It wouldn't make any difference to me, but I advise you NOT to review. Reviewing implies that you too, reader, are being dragged down by the grim tale of the three orphans and the people of the Jeffersonian and FBI.

With all due respect,

~DarkMousyRulezAll