Same disclaimers apply!
Kylie Wells had first heard of the forensic anthropology field from her brother, who was a huge fan of Doctor Brennan's books and would unsuccessfully attempt to convince her to read them, but she'd never given it much thought until Zack presented to her the opportunity to intern under the greatest forensic anthropologist in the world. Dealing with gross things in addition to the bones was not her cup of tea, though she'd slowly gotten used to it from working in close proximity to Jack Hodgins, who had told her more than she needed or wanted to know about a variety of bugs, toxins and chemicals.
She knew from years of hanging around the Ann Arbor police department and growing up around her father, the late Chief of Police, and a now ex-cop-turned-FBI-agent-in-training for an older brother that she somehow wanted to do what they did. But unlike her father and brother, she was more interested in the science behind it all as opposed to interrogating people and catching them in their lies, though she was more than proficient at it if it ever became necessary, which was exactly how she caught Temperance Brennan in a lie during her lunch break.
"Ange, I need to talk to you," Temperance Brennan popped into the lunch room, where Angela and Kylie had been eating at separate tables.
"Can it wait?" Angela looked from her fresh Chinese take-out to her best friend.
"No, I'm afraid it can't. Booth found a new lead," Kylie detected a slight increase in Brennan's tone of voice, which – from what her dad taught her while she witnessed him during some interrogations – usually indicated the person was lying, hiding something, or both.
"No, he didn't." Damn her and her inability to filter what came out of her mouth, but her frustration at Dr. Brennan's unwarranted lack of trust in her had been boiling from her first day at the Jeffersonian.
"Excuse me, Miss Wells?" Dr. Brennan turned her attention to her week-old intern, appalled at her response.
"When you've found out something new, you usually tell Doctor Saroyan first," Kylie shrugged, hiding her ability to detect liars as she bit into her vegetable and hummus sandwich. "But when you go to Angela first, given that you're best friends, it's something that you don't really want everyone knowing."
"Alright, Bren, spill it," Angela crossed her legs and arms.
"I…can't," Temperance Brennan begrudgingly swallowed, still reeling from her youngest intern's perceptiveness. Was she a trained psychologist? That would explain her…unique…observations. This is not acceptable.
"Why not?" her best friend was confused.
But Kylie caught onto her mentor's subtle side-glance at her and confronted her. "Doctor Brennan, you clearly have something to say about me. Please save me the trouble and say it right to my face."
"I don't know what you're talking about," she unsuccessfully lied.
"Why don't you trust me?" Kylie cut to the chase, sitting up straight in her chair.
"Your credentials are lacking, Miss Wells," Brennan replied bluntly. "Everyone here has a Masters, if not a doctorate."
"I don't," Angela raised her hand. "I've only got a Bachelors in Fine Arts, yet you wouldn't solve half as many cases without me around, Bren."
"Ange, you're not helping," the forensic anthropologist cut her off. "Doctor Addy, the forensic anthropologist who sat where you're sitting, was my most brilliant assistant and colleague. Despite his recent actions, I still trust his judgment and consult with him from time to time on an array of topics. When Zack talked to me about you, I trusted that he was recommending someone whose skills and intellect were comparable to his. Unfortunately, for only the second time in the time I've known him, he was wrong."
Kylie's insides boiled with a newfound rage and anger as her entire body shook. She knew from her coworkers' frequent banter with Doctor Brennan that she could be difficult to work with, but for her to insult her intelligence without actually being around often enough to watch her do her work?
She knew she was risking her internship with the way she was about to talk to her mentor, but Kylie was not about to allow herself to endure the same pain from her first year on the debate team, where everyone except for Zack and her coach had judged her intellect based on her social status as a cheerleader. "I graduated magna cum laude with two degrees in anthropology and biology in four years," Kylie replied, disregarding any respect she had previously shown, "with a minor in psychology on top of that."
"Psychology hardly counts as an area of substantial study," scoffed Dr. Brennan, although she secretly appreciated Sweets and his crucial insights.
"Which is why Doctor Sweets has provided the missing keys in your evidence for past cases that you wouldn't have found otherwise," Kylie coldly retorted. "You've just made two mistakes in one day, Doctor Brennan. The first one was assuming that my IQ would be as high as Zack's, meaning that you also assume that anyone he deems talented has an IQ as high as his, which is incredibly inaccurate. I'm not gonna lie, Zack knows how smart he is, but he acknowledges his weaker areas, for which he defers to others without a problem. Your second mistake was judging me based on observing me only two times, both instances in which I've ended up being correct."
"You have no sense of logic or factual evidence in your observations," Brennan shook her head. She'd dealt with enough psychology mojo from Sweets alone; she wasn't about to condone it from her new intern, of all people. "I can't follow your line of thinking."
"Okay, I can't take this anymore," Angela cut in between the two of them and turned to her best friend. She knew Brennan was often narrow-minded and had limited perspectives, but this was the height of it. During her time with Kylie, she'd known right away that Kylie was something else. Her IQ was nowhere near as high as Zack's, but for what she lacked in IQ, she made up for in determination and hard work.
"Sweetie, take it from Hodgins, Cam and me. Ask any of us about Kylie. At least one of us is around her 24/7, and we see how hard she works. When she's not analyzing bones, she's helping me refine the murder scene, assisting Hodgins with his bugs or an experiment even when they gross her out, or helping Cam with the flesh samples. Not to mention she has scarily good insight into a murderer's head. I don't know how she does it, but she's good."
"Fine," Doctor Brennan huffed. "Miss Wells, you're in charge of the rest of this case."
"What?!" Angela and Kylie exclaimed in unison.
No! Kylie thought frantically. All I wanted was for Doctor Brennan to be more open to different ways of thinking and to accept the way I work, not to actually lead an entire case!
"If you truly believe you're qualified to be here, then show me. I will take no part whatsoever, nor will I offer you any consultation, or any of you for that matter. I will simply...watch."
"But what about the interrogations and field work you do with Agent Booth?" Kylie asked.
"If your insight into a killer's brain is as good as Angela says, I'd like to see it. For the remainder of this case, you have the lead. Either that, or I could always fire you."
Kylie couldn't believe her mentor would resort to blackmail to make her prove herself, but at that point, she would do anything to prove her worth to the best forensic anthropologist in the world. "Challenge accepted."
"Are you sure about this, Doctor Brennan?" Camille Saroyan asked her colleague upon hearing the shocking news from Angela.
"If she's as hardworking as you all say, then yes," Doctor Brennan said with finality.
"Will anything I say convince you to reconsider?" Cam already knew what the answer would be, but she decided to ask anyway.
"No."
She'd never seen Brennan doubt an intern as strongly as she did Kylie; it was incredibly unlike her. And to force her to lead a case to prove herself? It wasn't right, Cam knew, but she was well aware of Brennan's lingering emotions from Zack's fate that she unsuccessfully tried to hide, and if Kylie leading the case would provide her with some sense of closure, then she was on board with it.
"Then you better call Booth."
Sorry this took a little longer to update than usual! I couldn't decide how I wanted to present this next turn of events, but I finally decided to go with something a little different. This chapter gave a little more insight into Kylie's character, since I realized that anything you've learned about her so far has come from what she tells others and the way they react to her, and you don't really know too much about her background. I don't want to spell it out too much though, because that'll take away from any potentially interesting conversations with other characters, and to be honest, I might not even get to all of it. Would anyone be interested in a prequel that explores how Kylie met Zack and became best friends, and how she ended up the way she is in this story? Let me know! Thank you all for keeping up!
