Title: The Multiples in the Family
Author: SplishySplash
Pairing: Booth/Brennan
Spoilers: Up to Yanks in the UK
Chapter 6: Sweets in the Lab
It wasn't long after Booth and Sweets had arrived at the FBI building that they were sitting on hard chairs in an interrogation room across from the blond they had met earlier in the day. Booth smiled politely at the woman and folded his arms across his broad chest. "Ms. Grant, are you sure you don't want a lawyer because if you can't afford one, one will be assigned to you." He said.
"I already told you, I don't have anything to do with Elisa and I don't know where my brother is." She snapped, her face was red with annoyance and her hair was falling out of her well placed braid.
"Witnesses say that they saw him at your house yesterday morning." Sweets said pointedly, knowing that it wasn't the complete truth because he had knocked on the neighbor's door by accident.
"So what if he was? I wasn't home." She snapped again.
"If you are harboring a suspect, you can go to jail as an accessory to murder . . ." Booth answered growing annoyed by the woman when Hyde peeked through the door.
"Booth? There is someone here that needs to talk with you." He insisted, his voice straining to stay neutral. "Right now, please."
Booth jumped to his feet and went out the door to find a well dressed man standing next to Dalton. "Are you Ms. Grant's lawyer?" He asked formally.
The dark haired man frowned before he spoke. "Not quite, I am her husband." He said folding his arms and trying to intimidate the agents. "I am her power of attorney."
"I'm sorry, but that's not quite how it works." Booth said raising a brow and turned on his heels to head back into the interrogation.
He stopped in his tracks when the man spoke. "I know you are looking for Nathan Grant and I know who can tell you where he is." The man said firmly, as if he knew the right thing to make him listen. Booth motioned for him to follow him into the interrogation room with him, but a hand placed on his arm made Booth stop again. "I would rather not do this in front of her."
Booth nodded turning on his heels and leading the man down the hall to a small break room, Dalton followed with a slightly appalled look on her face. Booth drew out a chair on the small table, motioning for him to sit as he pulled one out for Dalton as he chose to lean against the counter. "Alright Mr. Hendrickson, tell us a story."
He took a deep breath as if he was choosing his next words wisely. His mouth opened and closed a couple of times before he spoke. "I have it under strong suspicion that Nathan Grant could be hiding in Juniper Creek, a compound about an hour south of here.
"Great we will send someone down there to pick him up." Booth said, clapping his hands together. Dalton's mouth opened slightly as if she had a question, but didn't ask it.
"You can't just march in there with guns all ablaze." Bill said as if it was bright as day. "Roman Grant has power like you wouldn't believe and if you are not careful he will turn it around to being religious persecution."
"What makes you think that Nathan Grant is with him on the compound?" Booth asked after a moment of silence.
Bill gave an annoyed sigh. "He is one of Roman's favorite sons he's always going to go back to the nest and especially when he's in trouble." He explained folding his arms across his chest. His words contradicted what his neighbor had said earlier about him being banished from the compound.
"Your neighbor told us that Nathan Grant was a lost boy, but doesn't that mean he was banished from the compound?" Booth asked with a frown.
A hand came to the man's face and rubbed his tired eyes. "He was banished. I don't know why though, but after I married his sister, he went back to the compound and asked his father for forgiveness, repented and became one of his favorites by taking a wife that Roman assigned. He became fruitful and he started to multiply and replenish the earth." Booth shivered as Bill quoted the bible.
They sat in silence for a moment before Booth spoke up. "Why would he show up at your house with a credit card in your address?" Booth asked twirling his pen aimlessly.
"I don't know, for all I know he doesn't know where I live." Bill said and then his face lit up as if he thought of something. "Nikki must have been keeping contact with him after I had asked to minimize all contact with the compound."
"Why would you do that?" Booth asked, tapping the pen on the table and becoming more agitated with the questioning.
"I try to cut my ties with Juniper Creek and if I by a small chance do have contact, it's at a minimum." Bill said with remorse.
Dalton shuffled from her spot next to Booth and changed the subject. "Will you be able to get us a meeting with Roman Grant?" She said with a forced smile, Booth glared at her because he wasn't finished questioning.
He sighed. "If it will get you to leave my family out of this, I will." Bill said and got to his feet. "Now if you don't mind, I would like to take my wife home." The woman nodded and held out her hand for him to follow her to the interrogation room.
*~*
Brennan stood in the midst of the remains of the mass grave and bent over the remains of her fifth victim without a clear cause of death, causing her to grow frustrated. The students around her worked quietly on their own set of remains bringing the complete body count to twelve with many more remains yet to be pieced together. As she started her next set, the elderly professor placed a hand on her shoulder causing her to jump in surprise.
She turned around to face him. "I'm sorry to have startled you Doctor Brennan, but you have a call from the Jeffersonian." He said. She nodded her thanks and snapped her gloves off her wrist, following the man to the satellite linked computer that sat next to the original set of remains.
Jack Hodgins stood on the other side of the screen with his bright smile. "Hello Doctor B." He said brightly. "Woah Doctor B, you look great this morning."
"What do you have for me?" She asked, mustering up a smile despite her aching muscles and using all of her self control to will the blush away.
He clapped his hands together before he spoke excitedly. "I ran the analysis on the data you sent me from the skull and she wasn't shot." He said. "I found traces of silt that matched the sample you sent to the wound. Angela has been running scenarios . . ." Angela's smiling face filled the screen next to the entomologist.
". . . Of all plausible causes." She interrupted, giving Hodgins a small shove out of the way. "Hi Sweetie, you look great this morning."
"Thanks Angela, now can you tell me the plausible causes." She said to the point and looked down at the remains on the table to hide the color creeping up her cheeks.
"She was pushed and it could've been an accident." The screen changed to show the scenario as drawn up by the Angelator. "Or a huge rock with a pointy end was thrown at her with deadly accuracy."
She ignored her sarcasm and kept on the point. "But that doesn't explain the fact why her fingers tips were cut off and why she was set on fire." Brennan said, pulling on another pair of gloves and searched the remains for answers.
"Someone was trying to cover something." Hodgins conjectured with a hand under his chin. "Did you find anything about the infant?"
"I found knife marks on her ribs suggesting that someone performed crude caesarean section. The baby came out, but whether it was alive or not, I can't tell." Brennan answered, picking up the pelvis to examine it further. "And it definitely didn't come out of the birth canal."
"What about the mass grave? Did you have any luck with that?" Asked Cam, coming up between Angela and Hodgins with her arms folded.
"Yes, we've managed to sort a good portion of the remains." Brennan answered.
"Was Sweets any help in the process?" Cam asked, knowing that both the agent and the anthropologist were annoyed by the call that she made. "I don't see him around."
Brennan huffed slightly. "That is because he is with Booth interrogating a possible suspect and to answer your question, no he hasn't been any help. We were able to find a pattern in the placement of the remains that has helped in the identification process."
A chuckle came from the three in the lab. "He said he has experience in that kind of things."
"He hasn't shown any experience, all he has done so far is aggravate Booth and take up. . ." Brennan started when a random star stricken student approached her and stood into her space. She turned on her heels and sent a questioning look to the girl. "Can I help you?"
"We found four sets of remains that could possibly be murder victims." She said with her voice raised in pitch.
Her eyes grew wide and she quickly dismissed her colleges with a promise to call them back before following the young student to a set of tables in the corner with four sets of remains laying on them. She pointed to the table closer and started to explain the find. "This is the sixth guy we recovered, a male between the age of fifty five and sixty years old." She pointed to the large hole in his skull. "A bullet hole through the frontal bone with an exit through the occipital bone is the likely cause of death."
Brennan picked up the school and examined it. "There is a chance that this a suicide and the placement of the bullet seems too coincidental. Keep working on him." Her attention turned to the other three that sat close together and she looked to another student for clarification.
"These ladies are number sixteen, twenty and twenty one in relation to the pattern." Said another student, picking up one of the skulls and he pointed to the fracture. "All the remains are adolescent females about the same age of sixteen through nineteen, each with crushing fractures on their skulls. It's very well that all three girls were killed by the same person, matching the remains from the car."
The doctor shook her head. "Not necessarily." Brennan said the rest of the students stopped to listen to her explanation. "You have to take into account of when and where they died they may have fallen and struck their head on some sort of surface or pushed. The probability of the first set of remains . . ." She paused and squinted at the pelvic region, it was wider to allow for an infant to pass through. Brennan slightly gasped as she noted that the ribs had matching knick marks as Elisa Grant had. "We need to move these remains next to the first one."
Four students took the task of moving the remains where she asked as she began the tedious work of identifying when the girls had died and taking dental x-rays to find the identity.
It was near seven when Booth and Sweets wandered into the empty lab with their loud footsteps, breaking the silence. "It seems that you got a lot done today." Booth commented to Brennan, who was standing over another set of remains.
She stood to full height slowly with her muscles aching in protest and turned to face him. "We were able to sort at least half of them before they were dismissed." She answered with a tired smile. "After deciphering a pattern to the placement of the remains it was smooth sailing."
Booth was caught off guard by her use of the metaphor. "Excellent use of the metaphor, Bones." He said with a smile as they both watched Sweets wander through the maze of remains that have yet to be put together.
"Did you find any personal effects with the victims?" Asked Sweets, looking intrigued as he crossed to the other side of the room taking in the sorted victims.
"No." Answered Brennan and turning back to the set of remains that she was working on before they walked in. Booth looked over her shoulder and watched as she examined a rib. "There wasn't anything, Hodgins says they died somewhere else and were buried there after decomposition."
"Is there a way to promote rapid decomposition?" Sweets asked.
"Fire for sure." She answered simply. "But only one of them has been burned and that was the one from the car. Boiling with water or filleting with a knife, but none of the remains show signs of that. Chemicals. . ." Stopping abruptly, she turned to the remains and smiled before reaching around Booth to grab the saw.
"Wait what?" Booth asked, cursing her quick moving mind. "Why is there four remains over here?" He noticed the three new remains and couldn't discern the original from the others.
"Three more young girls were found with similar wounds to their skulls and knife marks on the ribs." Brennan said as she looked for her goggles in the place that she grabbed the saw and frowned when they weren't where she left them. She stepped around Booth to open the drawer only to be disappointed that they weren't there either, Booth turned around and watched with a smile before grabbing her wrist, turning her to face him. She stopped and looked him in the eye, watching him tentatively as he reached up and pushed the yellow safety glasses off the top of her head to fall onto her eyes. A small flush of red crept up her cheeks causing her to break eye contact and look at the remains.
"Did the same thing happen to them?" Booth asked with an amused smile, it wasn't often that he was able to fluster her.
"Not quite. Only Elisa was burned and her finger tips cut, but all four have matching wounds on their head to conclude that they all died in the same fashion of falling and striking their head on a hard surface. All four were pregnant and no remains of infants have been found, but don't disregard the knife marks on their lower ribs." She explained gaining her control back and folded her arms, momentarily forgetting what she was doing. "I'm going to cut out some of the bone marrow to get a tox-screen and DNA, Hodgins should get my soil samples by tomorrow and I can figure out when they died and if they have anything to do with Elisa."
He nodded "When you are done with that we are out of here. I'm hungry." He said and wandered away to find the psychologist who had disappeared down a flight of stairs where more remains were being worked on. His footsteps caused the younger man to jump and causing the magnifying glass in his hand fall on to the table knocking a line of glass beakers onto the floor and spreading the glass across the floor.
"Booth, you startled me." He said and his face fell, praying that the anthropologist didn't hear the loud shattering of the glass.
Booth smiled broadly awaiting for Brennan's head to poke over the top of the stairs to investigate the crash, but to the psychologists luck she was still sawing into the bones for samples. "You are lucky she didn't hear that." Booth teased bumping him with his shoulder. "She would probably kick your ass."
He paled slightly, never wanting to be on the bad side of the anthropologist especially after reading her file and seeing her argue with the agent with such passion. His gaze transferred to the glass on the floor. "What do we do with the glass?" He asked in a higher pitch.
The agent smiled as he took two steps to the younger man and used his shoe to shove the glass under the table, Sweets' mouth dropped slightly as he watched Booth hide the mess. "See, now what Bones doesn't know isn't going to hurt her, right?" He said coyly.
Sweets chuckled nervously as Brennan's voice rang from the stairway. "What have I told you about touching things Booth?" She asked, with her arms folded and a frown on her lips.
Booth's hand rested on a very expensive microscope and he quickly moved his hand, resting it on his side. For a brief moment the psychologist thought that Booth was going to rat him out to the anthropologist. "Not to touch anything because I tend to break them is that correct?" Booth asked with a cocky smile. Sweets watch their interaction with fascination, they were excluding him again and if he didn't know better they were flirting with each other.
"That is correct." She said, a smile breaking her stony face. "The DNA test is running, are you ready to leave?"
The two men nodded and she turned on her heels, taking off her lab coat and Sweets let out the breath he was holding. Booth turned to face him again with the same smile. "What? Did you think I was going to feed you to the wolves?"
"Yeah, a little bit." Sweets said as they headed back to the stairway.
Booth leaned in slightly and lowered his voice to a whisper. "Want to know a secret?" He asked, gaining a nod from the psychologist. "She's not as scary as she seems, Bones is really a big softie."
Sweets laughed as Brennan stood at the top of the stairs again. "Are you coming?" She asked, her voice tinged with annoyance.
"We're coming." Booth said as he took the steps two at a time until he came face to face with the antsy anthropologist. "Hungry?"
"Yes, I am. Now let's go." Brennan said with another bright smile and Sweets just shook his head, following the partners out of the lab.
*~*~*
It wasn't long until they were back in the hotel after eating dinner and Booth sat on the bed with his back to the head board and a file sitting lazily on his lap while his eyes focused on the TV. Brennan had voted to take a shower and the water hissed from the bathroom while Sweets sat on the couch typing furiously on his computer and occasionally voicing his opinion about the show that Booth was watching, but was growing irritated as Booth constantly changed the channel.
"Will you pick something and please leave it there?"He asked after awhile.
Booth ignored him, only turning the volume up and switched from the local news to a Spanish speaking channel to the movie Speed which he sat the remote down and picked up the file containing his partners notes from the day.
Her cell phone started to ring on the nightstand next to him and without missing a beat he muted the TV and answered it. "Doctor Brennan's phone." He said, Sweets looked up from the computer looking slightly appalled, the voice on the other end talked loudly that he could almost decipher what the voice was saying. "Well she just got in the shower and she will be out soon. . ." The voice grew frantic before he spoke again. "Alright I'll get her, hang on." He sat the file that was on his lap on the bed and got up, knocking on the bathroom door. "Bones, it's your editor and she really, really needs to talk to you."
The water stopped and in seconds she opened the door with her hair greasy from the conditioner and one leg partly covered in shaving cream, wrapped in a towel with water dripping onto the floor. She took the phone and held it to her ear. "Karen?" She asked, and the woman started speaking loudly and very quickly. "I'm sorry, but I'm out of town working on a case . . .Okay, Okay I will send it, right now." She rolled her eyes. "I'm sending it, it will be there as soon as possible."
She brushed past Booth, leaving him slightly wide eyed. She walked to her computer and opened the lid when Sweets noticed that she was standing there. "It's finished, Karen. . ." She said almost snapping at the woman on the phone. Her fingers danced quickly on the key board as she leaned over the table, giving her partner a look at her shapely figure underneath the white terry cloth. "Okay I just sent it and no I'm not going to wait, I only have less than a minute with this conditioner and I need to wash it out, have a good night." She hung up without waiting for a goodbye and threw her phone on the bed.
"I take it that you missed a deadline?" Booth said with a chuckle as he sat on the edge of the bed with his arms folded.
She frowned and stomped her foot impatiently. "The deadline is at midnight and she gets a little upset when I don't send it hours before." She said.
Booth looked at his watch. "Well it's almost midnight in Washington D.C." He said, Sweets watched their comfortable conversation even with her lack of clothing. "I can see why she panicked because you are very prompt to a fault."
"A fault?" She questioned, her voice rising in pitch and she shook her head. "I will argue this later." She trotted past the bed and into the shower, before the hiss of the shower was heard in the room.
It was silence between the two men before Sweets spoke for the first time since complaining about the TV. "Woah." He said with his eyes wide and his mouth slightly agape.
Booth threw a pillow at him, hitting him squarely in the face. "Will you please stop eyeing my partner?" He asked in almost a growl. But he couldn't complain, her legs seemed to go on for miles even though one leg was covered in shaving cream and the towel didn't leave much to the imagination and hugged her curves perfectly.
"Defensive much?" He asked, tossing it back to him and grinned, he had the upper hand.
"Defensive?" He asked with a raised brow.
"It seems to me that you get defensive when anybody looks at your partner like that, I mean looking at her like. . ." Sweets analyzed, tossing the pillow back.
"She's a piece of meat being fed to the wolves." Booth finished for him, but grew quiet as the water stopped. "And I don't get defensive." He turned the sound up on the TV and focused his attention on the high speed chase that was on the movie.
"Yes you do and its because there is enough sexual tension between the two of you . . ."He said with a smile and stopped when a fully dressed Brennan came out of the bathroom. Her hair was tied up with a towel on the top of her head as she placed her things in her bag and sat on the bed, taking the file from Booths lap. "Is everything alright?" She asked, taking notice of the tension that built up.
"Fine." Said Sweets with a smug smile and turned his attention back to his work.
"Everything is fine." Booth said, grabbing the file from her and setting it on the bedside table. "No more work for tonight, your brain might turn to gelatin."
"Booth it's physically impossible for your brain to turn to gelatin, it's not even made of the same compound." She said, pulling her hair out of the towel and sprinkling some water on her partner gaining a shove from her.
"Well, the point is that you've worked too damn hard today and you need a break." Booth said as Sweets shut his computer and turned the light off, before crawling into bed. Brennan laid her head on the pillow and Booth followed, shutting off the TV.
She rolled on to her side away from him, suddenly very conscious of the proximity of her partner. He rolled over and placed an arm around her and after the snores came from the shrink that he whispered into her ear. "Bones?"
"Yes, Booth." She whispered.
"What your opinion on puritan modesty?" He asked with a chuckle, she buried her face into the pillow as he felt the heat radiating off of her and he was about to roll back over, when she grabbed a hold of his hand to keep him there and they soon fell asleep.
