Hodgins found an entire person down in the digging shaft at the two hundred foot mark. It took time and effort, but he retrieved all of the bones that he could find and brought them up to the surface. Hardewicke wasn't pleased that the Jeffersonian would be taking the credit for finding them even though it was his site, but he knew better than to protest.

"I'm amazed you found a complete skeleton," Brennan said to the entomologist, looking from the front of the exam table down towards the end. To anyone that knew her, her voice was a bit awed at the centuries-old bones on the table, arranged to look like a person even though he hadn't been one since the pirates were sailing near America. Pirates do still exist and sail, but not as widely as they used to because of organized groups like the coast guard.

"C-fourteen dating matches at three hundred years," Zach told her supportively, daring to sound hopeful that Brennan would officially rule this the case of a pirate.

Brennan looked down, holding the original phalanx tightly but gently in her dominant hand. "Subject is male, early twenties, approximately five feet… six inches." She walked around the side and set the bone in with the other phalanges of the right hand, completing the anatomical structure.

"Legs are bowed," Zach called out, looking over the bottom half of the skeleton. He was paying special attention to the femur, tibia, and fibula. "A result of visible calcium and phosphate deficiency."

"Hypophosphatemia," I said to Hodgins with a sideways look to Brennan, silently asking if we wanted to push for the pirate theory. "A very pirate-ish condition."

"He had rickets as a child, but his upper body is extraordinarily well developed." Brennan missed the communication between Hodgins and I – my look and his big, foolish grin and enthusiastic nod – but looked up expectantly for a more thorough analysis of the remains.

"Epiphyseal separation in the long bones. Sunken sternum forms scorbutic rosary at costochondral margin." Zach motioned with his hand over the skeleton to point out what he was talking about, and though Booth admirably tried to follow along with his eyes, I don't think his brain was quite able to keep up with his ears. Sometimes it's hard to remember that things I think of as normal are things that most people wouldn't understand, and I glanced at Zach, nodding subtly towards the FBI agent.

Brennan translated before the other intern had to. "He suffered from scurvy, as well as tertiary syphilis."

Booth shoved his hands into the pockets of his slacks to complain. "What's with the "tertiary?"" He asked. Brennan and Zach shared a look of confusion while Hodgins caught my eyes only to roll his in a show of exasperation from behind Booth's back. "Isn't plain old syphilis bad enough?"

Since the entomologist seemed content to be exasperated and Brennan was starting to give Booth the "I-Find-It-Hard-To-Believe-You're-An-Adult" stare, I shrugged my shoulders and came to Booth's aid. "I bet this guy would have agreed with you," I said in reference to the skeleton.

I successfully diverted the other scientists' attentions.

"Scurvy, syphilis…" Zach trailed off and gave his head a shake to knock himself out of it. "Pirate," he sighed happily.

Brennan opened her mouth to protest about the lack of proof, but Hodgins jumped forwards at the statement he'd been waiting for, eagerly backing up Zach and making pleading eyes at his superior. "There is anthropological evidence which supports the claim that Blackbeard executed his burial crews after they were done digging!" Booth pointed at Hodgins and nodded emphatically, just as hopeful as Zach, Hodgins, and I that this could be officially a pirate find.

Brennan pursed her lips and looked over her four very pirate-enthusiastic colleagues. Although we all work here, and Booth is technically calling the shots in the investigation, Brennan is the best at the science part of the job, and we'd defer to her. Besides, as the overseer of Zach's and my internships, the two of us kind of had to.

"Okay," she said slowly, trying and failing to fight back the smile that was trying to take over. "Let's… say it's a pirate." She finally caved.

"Yes!" Hodgins shouted triumphantly, throwing his fist in the air in celebration.

"This would be an extraordinary find," Brennan chuckled, looking to the bones with as much fondness for a dead man's skeleton as a sane person can have.

"And," Booth started to interject melodramatically, taking his hands out of his pockets in favor of holding up his arms and making arches in the air in front of his face like a grand presentation. "Would open up the reality… of… the treasure!"

Brennan half-nodded, accepting it wisely rather than going against it. "It would be stupid to dismiss anything at this point," she reasoned, justifying it to herself as much as she was to the rest of us. "But we need to discover why the ossien isn't fully decomposed from being waterlogged for so long."

I don't think I've ever seen Booth so excited to get to work on something that would have to be done in the lab, but he actually looked disappointed when he looked to the bones, opened his mouth to talk, and then had to close it again, not knowing what to say.

Hodgins backed up quickly to the computer and pulled up the dark map of the underground tunnel, pointing to the side of the part he wanted us to see. "About fifty feet down the shaft is a layer of blue putty consisting of silicone and clay. It could be used to form a watertight seal." That would preserve the bones didn't have to be said out loud.

Brennan nodded to Hodgins quickly. "That would explain the condition of the bones."

"I took samples of the same blue clay between two hundred and two hundred and seven feet." Hodgins tapped the screen very lightly, eager but also conscientious of the frailty of the computer monitor. "Something is buried down there."

"The bones must have been lying on top of it," I mused, turning to look down at the perpetually smiling skull. What did you find, huh?

Booth made a noise of realization. "Macy was killed because of something that he found," he hypothesized brightly. Despite his value for human life, there isn't much that could top a pirate murder. A pirate murder!

Hodgins nodded his swift agreement. "The silt in his throat and lungs confirms he was killed at the top of the shaft."

Zach rocked on his heels before he joined in on the theorizing and hypothesizing, something that Brennan is being a lot more lenient about than she used to be. "After he swam back up with the treasure," he added to the end of Hodgins' previous sentence.

I held out a hand, palm-up, to Zach and looked across the table towards Brennan for her approval. "That explains why he was found with the bone in his hand," I pointed out supportively.

"Special Agent Booth!" Dr. Goodman, former archaeologist and my current boss, as well as Jeffersonian administrator, had a very recognizable tone when he was agitated, and I had learnt it well during a brief period when I had been the one doing most of the agitating. He stood down on the floor by the hall that led to his office, his arms crossed. "I hate to interrupt your investigation, Agent Booth, but there's an angry billionaire in my office, and…" Goodman grimaced. "He won't go away."

"It's simple," Branson Rose declared pompously once Goodman had returned, dragging Booth and I behind him. He slapped his hand on the front of Goodman's desk, standing up while Booth and I were sitting in chairs angles towards the billionaire. Booth was sitting straight, but I didn't care to make Rose the center of my attention, so I was slumped to the side, my elbow on the arm of the chair and my chin on my hand. "You have something that belongs to me, and I'm not leaving here without it."

I raised my eyebrows and smirked at him, enjoying being able to taunt him more than I probably should. "Wanna bet?" I asked sardonically.

Although Booth wouldn't be so rude, he was equally unintimidated by the older man's attempts to regain what he thought was his. "A day ago, you couldn't wait to leave, pull out of the island, and cut your losses. You remember that?"

"A lot can change in a day," Rose answered, blustering for only a second.

Booth nodded in agreement and he rolled his eyes, relaxing and leaning back into the chair. "Yeah," he said amiably before remarking, "For Ted Macy, a lot changed."

Rose sighed with too much annoyance. "Look," he said slowly, his voice strained and trying too hard to be calm and agreeable. "I'm sorry about Ted." And just like that, he started acting like a human being. "But I'll be damned if the federal government swoops in here at the eleventh hour to steal what I've been trying to find for two years!" Oops, I made the previous judgment too soon.

Goodman, for his temper and his surprising ego, was remarkably well-practiced at remaining calm when dealing with other egotistical bastards. Then again, takes one to know how to manipulate another one. "I fail to see what this has to do with the Jeffersonian."

"Those bones belong to me." Rose slammed his hand down on the desk again to stress the point. Are we deaf now or just stupid? "They were uncovered at my site. I was granted a permit to dig there and keep what was found." Goodman glowered levelly at Rose's hand encroaching on his furniture, but his shoulders rose as he made an effort at calming himself. "My attorneys assure me you have no claim to those bones."

I sat up in the chair and I shifted, leaning back and crossing one leg over the other to appear comfy and at home. It was the opposite of what Rose wanted, so that made it seem like a pretty good act to put on. The truth is, the only offices I really feel at home in are Angela's, Booth's, Brennan's, and Hodgins', although Hodgins spends less time in his office and more in his lab.

"My eleventh grade electives assure me that you have no legal claim to evidence in a murder investigation." Yeah, those electives served me well. I know quite a bit from them that helps me with my job now. I smirked at Rose, not at all put off by his monetary status, and I know that that contradicts who he likes to think people see him as. "Somehow, I don't think that fancy permit was meant to include human remains found by the government after someone working for you is murdered with a piece of said remains in his hand." I tapped my fingers on my thighs and possessively finished, "Those bones are ours. And the Jeffersonian is where they'll stay." Rose's eyes widened and he started to retort, but I continued to smirk. "Aw," I mocked. "Look at us, stomping on your sand castle."

Rose chuckled sardonically, shaking his head at me like he thought I was really going to regret mouthing off. "I was hoping to settle this amicably," he said, pretending to be remorseful that he couldn't actually be flexible and deal with it.

"Really?" Booth asked quietly, sarcasm falling from his words. "Because, you know, we haven't seen that yet."

Rose didn't want to hear it, and he gave Booth a scornful look, tossing his head up and starting to leave the room, probably to go talk to legal consultants. "Bah," he spat dismissively in goodbye.

"Humbug!" I chirped pleasantly, glad that he was leaving.

Branson Rose slammed the door on his way out, and he slammed it so hard that the glass shelves behind Goodman's desk rattled. Once he was gone, Booth stopped projecting complete calmness and he jumped up out of the chair, rubbing at the back of his neck. I, on the other hand, relaxed into the chair. It was surprisingly comfortable.

"This is going to be a headache," Goodman groused, mourning the loss of his peace. "He has some very important friends." He lowered his head and massaged at his temples.

"You have every reason to kick proverbial sand in their faces!" I grinned brightly. I knew that there was a lot of administrative and legal stuff that Goodman would have to deal with, but wouldn't it be totally worth it just to see Rose not get his way for once? Well, twice? Or as many times as possible? "Enjoy it! It's not like he needs the money, and you're not cheating him out of anything. Your conscience should be clear. And come on, what the hell does he need a skeleton for that badly anyway?"

Booth snapped his fingers as something clicked for him and he made a realization. "But he has partners that do!" He called out, growing excited again with a new lead. "Macy and Hardewicke were gonna split what they had found."

"But now Macy's dead." I realized what he was implying fast, and Goodman seemed to look between the two of us curiously, seeing how we worked when we weren't being ruled by Brennan.

"Exactly. Leaving Hardewicke with a bigger piece of the pie."

"Huh." I looked at the clock over on Goodman's wall by the door and then back to Booth almost sheepishly. I guess that's what I get for not watching the time. "Now that you've mentioned dessert, can we get a snack on the way to the island?"

"Geez, kid!" Booth sighed loudly and he grandly motioned with both hands to the door, shepherding me out so that he could follow and keep an eye on me. "You're supposed to be taking care of yourself." I opened my mouth to protest that I was, but I guess Booth knew me well enough to know it was coming. "Ah, we'll eat on the island, okay? Good old family bonding time."

"I am not wearing a pirate hat for a photo op," I warned Booth, half joking but half serious. I can't just ice him out whenever he brings up that we're family. We're related. I can't change that, but what I can do is let him get to know me. He wants to be my father, but I can't expect him to be who I need him to be if he doesn't know who that is.

Hardewicke met us when we got off of the ferry, still by the bay that opened into the ocean, and he walked with us on the way out to the main tourist area. The concrete was wet from hoses and water, but it was drying quickly because of the sunlight. The man was now just wearing a plain shirt and a dark jacket over it.

I still felt out of place wearing pajamas, but no one's going to make fun of a girl who got kidnapped and stabbed, and Hardewicke was there when I told Dane what had happened.

Hardewicke passed a photograph to Booth, a small wallet-sized picture of himself and Ted Macy, although both were much younger. "This is from our very first dig together," he said in explanation. Booth took the photo by the edge, careful not to smudge or damage it. There were crinkles in the paper already, but it was old and worn. "We found this chest buried under a flood drain up in Smith's Cove in New England. There was no treasure," he admitted, holding out his hands and shrugging. "But, you know, just to unearth something that's that old, had that much history – we were hooked. Never looked back."

As far as career-motivating events go, that's actually a pretty good story. I still think mine kind of tops his, since I was arrested for murder to start it off, then got a stalker, was nearly murdered, and shot a guy, but obviously I'm biased. Everything that's happened since the beginning of the year has just felt like one long whirlwind of events, and sometimes I barely have time to process one thing before another is thrown at me.

"I glanced through your company history," Booth shared, looking away from the photograph but handing it back carefully. Hardewicke took it, slid it into his wallet, and tucked that in his jeans pocket. "I mean, business was pretty slow since you didn't find any treasure out here. You were getting fewer and fewer clients."

Hardewicke chuckled softly and he looked down to watch his tennis shoes as he walked, finding them easier to talk about this with than the two of us. "Yeah… it's been difficult."

"Branson Rose was almost your last chance," Booth continued to prod, empathetic but not accusing, trying to garner more favorable results. I looked out as a horn blared and a ferry started pushing water, leaving its dock. I love the ocean, but I've never really gotten to just go places for the hell of seeing and enjoying. The travel I've done with Booth and Brennan is not only optional, which makes me feel better about it, but it's also something I can do safely, and I can look around without worrying about getting in trouble.

Hardewicke shrugged and he tried to take some of the heat off of the particular line of inquiry. "There's always somebody who wants to look for treasure."

"Really?" Booth said lightly.

"Yeah." And if that didn't sound a little bit defiant, then I wouldn't know defiance if it smacked me in the face.

"But if Rose pulled out of this, you'd not only lose your funding, but the bad press could wind up forcing you to give up your business." I walked a bit faster in order to get a couple of feet ahead of both men so that I could lean forward and watch Hardewicke for reactions.

"Yeah, but Macy found something – finally!" Hardewicke beamed for a moment before his hundred-watt smile dimmed. I'll give him this – I don't doubt he and Macy were like family. His emotions are too strong to be forged, and he doesn't seem like the type to be a particularly good liar. "We're… we were… gonna share the find with Rose – fifty percent for him, fifty for us."

Booth nodded and he slowed down, turning more to Hardewicke. "Exactly."

Hardewicke stopped in his place before he took another step forward, and he turned to survey Booth to decide his game. I stopped, crossing my arms, prepared to be a human obstacle if Hardewicke tried to bolt. It seemed unlikely, but even if I didn't have to block him, it was still letting him know that he couldn't go one way and the only other way he could go was into the bay, which was probably really cold, despite the warming weather of the beginning summer months.

"Oh…" I could see the exact moment that Hardewicke realized what he was being accused of. His demeanor turned angry. "I see. More for me if Macy's out of the picture, right?" He started to hold up a hand – not high enough to be for a hit, but enough to be a gesture that could convey a threat. He must have realized how that seemed, and he dropped his arm. "You're forgetting one thing: Macy was like family to me."

"Really." Booth was cynical, but understandably so. Even people who are family can kill each other, even if they do feel remorse afterwards.

Hardewicke opened his mouth to start to say something heated, but he stopped and made himself think it through. Then he reached down to the right side of his shirt, shoving his jacket out of the way and lifting the shirt up to about the middle of his ribs, turning so we could see. "Look at this." A long scar, over six inches long, started at the end of his ribcage and curved inward down towards his stomach. His abdomen was mottled purple and blue. I was amazed in hindsight that he could move without wincing. "I got that pulling Macy out of a sinkhole back in ninety-three." He dropped his shirt down again. "And he's got plenty of scars on him because of me, too."

I stepped closer to him, now concerned for his safety. There are very few reasons for someone to be as multicolored as he currently is, and if there was someone threatening him, then he needs to be safe until people can look into it. "That's sweet, but if there's one person who knows a hell of a lot about injuries, it's me. That scar is over ten years old. Fine, but there's discoloration around your ribs that's very recent. Who beat you up?"

Hardewicke paused like he was trying to come up with an excuse. He must have forgotten about his bruises in favor of defending his and Macy's relationship. Then he figured that there was no way he could lie to us after we saw him trying to excuse it, and he sighed. "The mayor."

"Whoa." Booth held out a hand for Hardewicke to back up. "How's the mayor figure into all this?"

"His wife." Hardewicke paused. "You saw her, right?" The sexy pirate queen? Yeah, I'm pretty sure everyone did. She made it hard not to, between how she dressed and how loudly she complained. "Well, Macy was… a bit of a hound, if you know what I mean."

Booth smirked and lifted his eyebrows skeptically. "Sleeping with the pirate queen?"

"The mayor got suspicious," Hardewicke continued as if he hadn't been questioned. "He came around last week, and I ended up taking the heat for Macy, because Macy's like my brother." He reiterated meaningfully. "And I'll tell you, that scrawny little pirate can kick, too! I'm lucky he didn't have time to load that flintlock!"

Booth looked past Hardewicke and to me. I met his eyes, equally solemn. Mayor Ney had done a great deal of damage to Hardewicke – hell, the man had enough to get the mayor arrested, but instead of getting a restraining order, he just let it go. If the mayor had gotten away with that, who's to say he didn't think he could get away with doing something similar to the man who really had been sleeping with his wife?

Brennan woke up the next morning and came out into the living room at around seven. I was already awake, playing an orchestral CD very softly so that I didn't wake her up or disturb anyone in the neighboring apartments and curled up comfortably on the couch with a book.

She came out in her normal clothes and with her hair drying off with a towel, wet and stringy from her shower. "How long have you been up?" She asked, walking past the couch I was on and into the small kitchen, putting on the water heater. I knew her morning routine pretty well, so I had already put water in it for her after I took my own shower earlier.

I tore my eyes up from the characters in the book – literal characters, not fictional people. The book was in Japanese. I was touching up on it, and there were some words I wasn't sure of. "Um, two hours?" Brennan sighed and gave me a slightly scolding expression. "Look, I did sleep, okay?" I justified, holding up one hand defensively. "I'm just not used to sleeping for very long." I looked back to the novel and then held it up. "I didn't know you spoke Japanese."

"I didn't know you did, either," Brennan returned quickly, "Until the other day."

"Touché," I remarked with a shrug.

Brennan's water started to boil, steam rising over the counter. She turned it off and stretched up into the cupboards for a coffee mug. "Are you going to go with Booth to the island this morning?"

I sucked on the inside of my cheek, considering, before I decided on something. "I wasn't planning on it, no," I answered her, making note of the page number and then closing the pages of the book gently. "He's just going to talk to the mayor's wife. Besides, we already spent a couple hours there yesterday. We got dinner and ice cream…" Brennan was smiling at me softly, the sort of fond expression she endears the squints with. "What?" I asked warily.

"I'm just…" Brennan shook her head, at a loss of exactly how to explain, and then she raised her shoulders innocently. "I'm happy that you seem to be working through things. You both seem less stressed around each other."

I fought back a smile but couldn't completely resist it. It was true – I was getting more used to the concept of Booth being my father, and I didn't feel like he was stepping on my toes as much while trying to keep me safe. We'd spent a couple of hours doing something unrelated to work and didn't argue. It was actually an enjoyable evening.

"Well, if he's buying me ice cream, how can I refuse?" I said jokingly, choosing not to let it go into detail.

Brennan snapped on the second latex glove around her left wrist and I followed her into the bone room, only to have to stop and backtrack when she froze right in the middle of the doorway, looking in shock at the completely empty table. There were no tools or bones on it, just the glow from the backlight under the table.

"Zach?" She called, walking back past me and into the hallway with an exponentially-growing sense of urgency. "Zach!" The intern in question came running out into the hall when he heard the shouts. I stepped into the bone room without Brennan, looking around for anything out of place or hinting to the bones' location.

"Yes, Dr. Brennan?" Zach asked in confusion when he didn't see anything amiss with her.

"The bones," she bit quickly. "What did you do with the bones?"

Zach didn't respond immediately, pushing his way into the room behind me and looking over my shoulder. "Nothing, Dr. Brennan, I left them on the table just like you asked!" He whirled around back to her, running out of the doorway.

Brennan's eyes widened and she quickly grew angry, raising her voice to a demanding shout that must have summoned the security guards. "Where the hell are my bones?"

An hour passed and by the time Booth arrived back from Assateague Island, everyone in the Jeffersonian, from the janitors to the technicians, had heard about the stolen skeletons. Once it was established they really had been taken, I had been just as livid as Brennan, but I had cooled off whereas Brennan remained fiery and furious.

"Bones don't just disappear," she snarled at Goodman's back as she stalked after him on the empty forensics platform. Goodman's shoulders heaved. "I thought this was a secure facility! You assured me this was a secure facility! I could be working at Stanford, you know," she hissed to the archaeologist. "This never would've happened at Stanford!"

Goodman took a deep breath as he turned around to face the fuming anthropologist head-on. "We spend three quarters of a million dollars annually on security," he said slowly, resigned to the scientist's unleashed temper.

Brennan glowered at him. "Obviously that's not enough!" Goodman looked up to the skylights and sighed at the continued verbal attack. "I want my bones!" She yelled in frustration. This was the most agitated I think I've ever seen her, and this is the closest to a tantrum or meltdown that she's ever had around me. Booth ran back up to the platform, swiping his ID on the way, and Brennan spun on her heels to snap at him instead of her supervisor. "Did you find my bones?"

Booth took a step back, faltering and raising his hands defensively above his head. "Maybe you just wanna… you know, chill a little?" He suggested timidly.

Brennan went slack-jawed as she narrowed her eyes at him dangerously. "Chill?" She growled.

"Yeah," Booth hedged to the side uncomfortably, well aware of the tension he was creating. "You know… take a pill?"

Brennan drew herself up irately. "Listen, dude," she mocked, trying to be mean. "My lab was violated, my bones are stolen, so I think I'll remain warm for a little while longer!" And yeah, when she said it like that, I could get why she was still so mad at everyone – the lab is hers, it's a safe place and a sanctuary, and someone violated it to take something that belonged to her, for all intents and purposes.

Angela joined us even though it could quite possibly end catastrophically and begin World War Brennan. "Honey," she said soothingly, holding out a hand toward Brennan. She thought better of it before she touched her friend, instead turning her hand up as she suggested, "Maybe you should focus on your breathing."

Booth took up temporary shelter behind Angela, shrugging casually and leaning over her shoulder. "Breathing," he repeated.

"Count to ten," Angela continued helpfully. Brennan crossed her arms with attitude, but she tried to breathe easier as Angela asked.

"Ten," Booth echoed.

"Have a shot of jack," Angela supplied calmly before reaching out to set her hand on Brennan's shoulder.

Booth winked and snapped his fingers. "Shot of jack," he reiterated. Brennan finally grew tired of his repetitions and rolled her eyes. Booth figured the coast was relatively clear and stepped away from Angela, tossing his arm around her shoulders and walking her away from Goodman, who finally breathed deeply in relief. "Look, we're doing everything that we can, okay? I promise you, we're gonna find your bones, but you have to allow us to do our jobs!"

Brennan stopped and turned back to Angela and I, who looked at each other, curious to how this was going to end. "I guess I wasn't…" Brennan inhaled deeply, following Angela's first suggestions. She looked down to the floor. "…Helping all that much, was I?" Angela, Booth, and I all raised our eyebrows, unwilling to answer verbally and possibly get tongue lashed again. "I'm… I'm…" Brennan struggled to finish the sentence and in the end, I guess she couldn't quite do it.

I chuckled, crossing my arms. "Don't hurt yourself, Dr. Brennan." As far as I was considered, the attempted apology was good enough.

"Sorry," Angela finished for Brennan, offering her a forgiving smile. "It's cool."

"Hey!" Booth clapped his hands happily, being far too optimistic, considering that he was surrounded mostly by pessimists. "Look on the bright side." Brennan threw him a testy look and he quickly elaborated on what he meant. "I mean, this whole theft thing could be good for us, right? I mean, whoever took the bones obviously had something to do with the murder. We're getting closer!"

Goodman dipped his head to agree. "I've ordered all on-duty security personnel to give a minute-by-minute account of their rounds," he informed.

Booth pointed at Goodman and stepped around Brennan. "I want accounts of all off-duty personnel as well," he said, trusting the administrator to relay the order.

"They didn't get everything!" Zach called, his voice announcing his arrival. Everyone turned slowly to stare at him questioningly. Myself, I was wondering why he didn't show up an hour earlier and save half of the Medico-Legal lab employees from being verbally assaulted by Brennan.

"I thought all the bones were on the table," Booth subtly prompted.

"All the new ones," Zach corrected, holding up a small sterile dish with a phalanx resting inside. "I was still examining the original finger bone we found for scurvy, so it was in my room." He held it out like a peace offering, and Brennan lifted it carefully. I leaned in.

Brennan squinted at the bone, cupping her free hand underneath carefully. She treated it reverently. "There is something they don't want us to find on this bone."

We took the bone to the bone room, and with little evidence, we were all sucked further into the investigation. Brennan set the phalanx underneath the scope of the magnifying glass, leaning forwards to maximize the magnification whilst Booth paced behind her and Hodgins rushed into the room, flipping a paper on a clipboard to see the results of the mass spectrometer.

"The periosteal surface on the phalanx doesn't have any ingrained particulates that I can recover," the entomologist finally had to grudgingly admit.

Brennan didn't seem all that surprised, but she still deflated just a bit. "The solution that the M.E. used probably dissolved anything that was lodged in any surface irregularities," she told Hodgins in answer, both trying to alleviate any guilt he felt and also trying to explain the lack of trace elements.

Zach came up on the other side of me and he dropped a folder onto the table next to Brennan's microscope, but was careful to drop it far enough away that he didn't startle her. "Who would clean a bone before extracting all available information from it?" He asked crossly, agitated at the very thought of a mediocre examination.

"The Jeffersonian is state of the art, but not everyone is as renowned. There's a reason for that," I responded in answer. I had no issue with Zach being annoyed with Harry Tepper, but if he asks a question, he might as well get an answer.

Zach shook his head, exhaling, with his hands on his hips. "So true," he sighed, looking up to the ceiling momentarily. "So true."

Hodgins tipped his head to the side and leaned forward, balancing his elbows on top of the table. "I wonder if there was gold dust on it," he wondered, pining after knowledge he probably wouldn't ever have.

Brennan straightened from the microscope enough to lift her head and stare at Hodgins dully, unamused by the theorizing at this point. "Perhaps you should start working with a parrot on your shoulder," she suggested sarcastically.

I smirked and pitched my voice up high. "Craaacker? Craaacker?" I raised my arms up level with my shoulders and flapped my hands to mock a bird.

It made Hodgins smile. "You're not curious?" He returned on Brennan.

"Yes," she corrected quickly, before amending sternly, "About the facts." Hodgins dramatically slumped his shoulders and lifted his eyes up to the lights overhead as he backed away. Brennan pulled the bone out from under the microscope as she carefully brought it up to eye-level for intense scrutiny. "There's a small hole along the distal articular facet of the finger. It… could be a foramen," she allowed tentatively. "But it could be something else, something man-made."

"A… weapon?" Zach tried to guess uncertainly, but as the weapons expert, he was the most likely to know, and if he didn't know what sort of blade or instrument could cause it, then it was probably something obscure.

"Maybe," Brennan replied, setting the phalanx onto the Petri dish again and handing it to Zach delicately. Zach held it like it was a precious jewel. "See if you can find any possible matches," she ordered, reaching to each wrist with the opposite hands.

Zach tilted his head to the side in earnest thoughtfulness. "I wonder if there are any other similar marks on Macy," he wondered out loud.

"We'll find out," I promised him as Brennan snapped her gloves off.

"And-" Brennan lifted her hand to the intern, completely serious in the warnings despite the less serious air of the room. Where the latex band had rubbed against her wrist, there was a thin red line running across her skin. She waved a finger at him solemnly. "Don't let that bone out of your sight."

"Dr. Brennan thought you might have overlooked a weapon of some kind," Booth said as tactfully as he could, and I did not miss that he was making a point of staying in between the two conflicting parties – meaning that Brennan and I were on one side of the backlit board and the M.E. Harry Tepper was on the other. I wasn't entirely sure who he meant to be protecting.

Harry smirked and he scoffed loudly, half for show. I was beginning to get that he liked being challenged, and then it was only so he could prove he was right; if he was actually wrong, then he enjoyed being yelled at, even if he didn't like being undermined nearly as much. Considering everything else I have to deal with, I really couldn't care less for a mortician who, it seemed, was possibly somewhat masochistic.

"He wasn't killed by a weapon," Harry pointed out slowly, carrying it out with thinly-veiled glee. "He was strangled." He pointed to the cervical vertebrae underneath the mandible in the x-ray pinned to the top of the board, the backlight making it easier to see the shades and details. "The larynx is crushed. It's plain."

Brennan's eyes narrowed and she stepped forward, pointing her fingers a centimeter away from the paper of the x-ray the bring the attention to the odd shading flecks around the higher part of the spine. "And cervical two through four are fractured," she rebutted Harry confidently. "That wouldn't have occurred if he were merely strangled."

Harry paused momentarily, shaken just enough from his firm ruling to have to strain to find a new one. "If the victim were shaken while being strangled-" he started to venture.

Brennan cut him off before he could even finish his theory, up to her eyes with what she deemed his incompetence and thoroughly, one hundred percent done with it. "The fractures are all left to right, approximately forty-five degree angles on each bone." It was hard to tell on an x-ray, but if anyone could, it would be Brennan. Harry bit down on his tongue to keep from talking and making himself seem any more foolish. "That meant that the head was jerked to the left and up, making sure that the spinal cord would tear."

I frowned to myself, opening my mouth to start to say something but deciding against it. I held out one arm, envisioning holding someone in a chokehold, and brought my other hand around above the first. I opened my second hand while keeping the position of the first firm, twisting my wrist quickly to the right and jerking my entire arm upwards. The cast never got in the way. In theory (although maybe not in practice the first time, because something like that takes strength and speed), I would have snapped the neck of the nameless, faceless victim, and caused the damage to the larynx in the process.

"The larynx was crushed when his neck was broken," Brennan concluded, not seeming to notice my phase of acting.

"Hang on." I stopped and held up one hand, dropping my other arm to my side while being mindful not to hit my bad wrist on my leg too hard. "Isn't that a sort of Special Forces technique for taking out sentries?" I knew it had seemed familiar from somewhere, but acting it out for myself gave me a visual I matched to Aaron's video games. I looked to Booth when I asked – he had been an army ranger and a sniper, but he'd probably know if I was right. "Put them in a chokehold so they can't sound the alarm, and snap their necks simultaneously to kill them quickly."

"Branson Rose's advertising likes to show off about him being a former Special Ops vet," Booth recalled thoughtfully, his eyes growing darker as he thought about it. He has very firm beliefs about how military training should be utilized, and while I agree with most of his morals in theory, I know for a fact that there are circumstances in practice where the lines may not be so clearly drawn.

"I'm always open to being corrected," Harry said, visibly straining to remain calm and open to Brennan's suggestions, despite that his ego was smarting from his pointed out inaccuracy. "Why do you think there might have been a weapon?"

"I saw a small perforation in the finger bone which you decided to put in the solvent." I nodded to the side. Yeah, I should have known Brennan would have to take another jab at him for it. "Did you damage the bone? Poke it? Stick it, in some way?"

"Still angry," Harry observed, taking the challenge as it came and holding himself up straighter in offense. His own attitude changed, becoming more confrontational and aloof. "Okay. No, I handled it according to protocol – rubber gloves, right into the solvent." He mimed dropping something into an evidence bottle.

"Something damaged that bone," Brennan insisted stubbornly, taking another step to the M.E. to once again defy his supposed superiority. "And it didn't happen three hundred years –" she cut herself off this time, her eyes widening marginally and her lips pulling down as something came to her mind. "Wait a minute," she mumbled, her mind already somewhere else as she turned away from the examiner and hurried around the board towards the doors.

I bit the inside of my cheek when I saw the look Harry was sporting – smirking delightedly like he thought he just won the pretty blue ribbon. I glared at him, clenching my hands into fists (which I can do with both hands now!) and imagining how it would feel to have acted out that Special Ops move on him.

"She totally just had a House, M.D. moment," I said loudly instead to Booth, counting on the fact that Harry would overhear. "You know, where she takes something small and has a total epiphany that leads her to the real problem even though no one else could have guessed?"

Zach held up a stainless steel tray, keeping it level for Brennan to see the things on it, all of which were possibilities he'd come up with for what could have caused the damage done on the phalanx. "I have alternatives that could've caused the hole," he said, picking up a little needle without a syringe or applicator. He held it sideways to keep from pricking himself through the gloves. "This is a disposable acupuncture needle." He let it drop back onto the tray, but there was white tissue paper keeping it from clattering onto the steel.

"Oh, come on," Booth scoffed in protest, rolling his eyes up to the ceiling. "He was healed to death?"

"Needles are dangerous," I cautioned Booth. If he was of the opinion that medical equipment couldn't be used as murder weapons, then clearly he needs to learn exactly how pointy and how lethal some medical instruments are. "If we were meant to have pieces of metal stuck in our skin, we'd have evolved not to lose blood when it happens."

"This," Zach continued as if Booth and I hadn't spoken, but he had acknowledged us by waiting until we were done talking. He lifted a section of wire that had been curled up as if cut from a longer coil. "Is a filament used for an angioplasty."

"Hand me the wire," Brennan requested, reaching with one hand for the bone on the dish and holding out the other for the wire.

Zach didn't even pause before he gave it to her, but he questioned it silently in the way he followed her actions carefully. Brennan held the wire carefully and lined it up with the bone before she hummed softly and set it down on the table. She lifted up a handheld blacklight to hold it over the two on the Petri dish.

"What are you doing?" Booth asked, unable to suppress the curiosity. He leaned forwards, uncrossing his arms.

"Diminished fluorescence," Brennan answered in musing, seeing the bone underneath the light. I couldn't see much of it, but the color didn't seem the same as the other bones I'd seen under the same type of lighting. "That only happens if the bones have been cleaned and treated. These bones didn't start out in the shaft, they were placed there."

Booth recrossed his arms. "What?" He said, disappointed and puzzled. He raised his eyes from Brennan and up to me. "Who has three hundred-year-old bones?"

"My God," I realized, my eyes widening. Brennan and Zach twisted around to stare at me in surprise from the exclamation and I held out my hands, urging them to understand the same thing. "We do!"

Brennan was well-respected by everyone who worked at the Jeffersonian Institute, not just in the Medico-Legal lab. Aside from our lab, the only exhibit the institute offered that could have a skeleton matching our pirate-fashioned criteria was the pirate department, which was recorded as having an entire skeleton recovered and put on very careful display.

The curator of the pirate museum was an elderly man in his fifties, wearing wire-rimmed glasses that kept slipping down the bridge of his nose and a grey three-piece suit, the epitome of a professional director or archivist, and he was willing to help however possible. In this case, Brennan just had to ask to see the skeleton, and he had other employees transport the skeleton in the case with the utmost care onto the Medico-Legal lab platform.

The bones were held in a long case, set in anatomical order and padded by a big, velvet red cushion, covered on all sides by glass sides. The edges were trimmed with golden metal and one side had hinges where it opened for cleaning and care.

Harley Frankel, the curator, lifted his head and cleared his throat as Brennan cocked her head, scanning the skeletal remains with rapt focus. I looked over it. It was a complete skeleton, the same color as most bones that have been thoroughly treated according to the Jeffersonian's protocol. "I assure you, everything here is authentic, Doctor Brennan… Miss Kirkland," he added with a nod of acknowledgment. It was nice to actually work here – now others knew who I was, because word got around fast, and I was treated with respect from people whose names I didn't even know. "I curated this exhibit for the Jeffersonian myself."

If this was supposed to potentially lower our suspicions, then it didn't. He glanced at Booth to see what he thought, but the FBI agent stood at the end of the table, equally unchanged by the honesty. "Could you please open the case?" Brennan asked firmly, but very politely.

The curator of the exhibit placed his hands tenderly on the front side of the box. "This is a beautiful specimen." Although he didn't verbalize it, he seemed to be pleading for us to be careful in the analysis. He pulled at a little gold latch and unlocked the side, allowing the glass piece to open up and out. He helped it to open without banging into anything or breaking. "Found in Jamaica. We believe he sailed with Henry Morgan."

Brennan reached in from the side and removed the radius from the left arm. "He's never been on a boat in his life," she declared, frowning deeply at the bone in her hand like it was personally insulting her. She didn't hold it with the same care that she did most.

Frankel puffed up indignantly. "That's absurd," he bit, offended. Brennan stared at him challengingly and grasped the radius in both hands, one on either end, and then bent it, forcing it into snapping in two pieces with a loud crack!. The bones were solid, not at all porous, with no cavities like bones should have. Manufactured. "Oh my God," the director gasped, his face paling before he realized that she hadn't actually broken bones.

"These bones are artificial," Brennan pointed out sharply, holding out one end of the break for Frankel to see. "It's acrylic, not bone. You can see on the real bone the hole where the wire was threaded when the bones were assembled for display."

Frankel put his hands over his stomach, appearing to fight back queasiness. "Then where is the rest of my sailor?" He cried.

I sighed and threw my head back, taking a step away from the lavish display case. "He was planted in a shaft at Assateague Island. That was why Macy was strangled – he found out the discovery was faux."

"Someone else found out, too. That's why all this happened." Booth looked up at the falsified skeleton in dawning disappointment, his shoulders beginning to slump. We had hoped that it would be an awesome pirate case, and while we did get to find a real pirate skeleton, the bones had already been found – he'd just been planted for the profit, meaning that this case was less to do with Blackbeard and his crew and more to do with the money and profit of the island.

"Who?" Frankel demanded, looking pretty ready to turn around and storm off to hunt down whoever had violated his display.

Brennan placed both of the broken halves of the radius down on top of the glass case. "A murderer."