(After 'The Change in the Game')

I don't own Bones.

Oooooooooooooooooo

Although Booth had talked to Brennan every day while she was out of the country, he was relieved when she finally returned home. Waiting in the airport for her plane to disembark its passengers, Booth kept glancing at the small bouquet of flowers he had in his hand then back at the exit to the ramp. Impatient, he finally noticed Brennan leave the ramp and walk out into debarkation zone. "Bones! . . . Temperance!"

Delighted to see her man, Brennan smiled and hurried over to where Booth was waiting for her. Kissing him, she was glad to be home. Taking the flowers from him, she smelled the delightful perfume from the bouquet. "Thank you, but it wasn't necessary to bring me flowers."

"Welcome home, Bones. I missed you and yes it was. I should give you flowers more often." Kissing her, he felt a sense of relief flood his body. Even though she had assured him numerous times that she was fine and the baby was fine, he could now see that she appeared to be the picture of health. "I missed you a lot."

"I missed you too." Brennan noticed the gray smudges under her partner's eyes and wondered if he had been getting enough sleep while she was gone. She would make sure that he rested properly now that she was home. "I'm ready to go home."

His arm linked around her arm, Booth began to walk to the baggage reclaim area. "We had three cases while you were gone . . . Well, I talked to you about them. We closed two of them, but we had problems with the third case because Clark had problems trying to identify the remains so the case is still open. Whoever dumped the body at the falls crushed part of the skull before they did it so some of the skull is missing."

"The body found at the New River Gorge National Park in West Virginia?" She knew that Dr. Edison had tried to identify the remains but had been unsuccessful and she was curious why.

"Yeah, that's the one. Someone was taking pictures of the waterfall and noticed human bones lying in the water near the falls. She called the Sheriff's office and then we were called in. Clark examined the remains and besides the problem with the skull he told me that one of the bones in the victim's left leg . . . I don't know . . . it's kind of melty looking. He said when he had time, he was going to research what he was seeing and see if he could figure it out. Whatever it is, it's new to him."

Fascinated, Brennan nodded her head. "I am definitely going to look at the remains tomorrow." She knew that Clark was an excellent forensic anthropologist, but he was still learning and there were things that came up from time to time that confounded him.

"Yeah, I was curious so I looked at the bone, not that I'm an expert and it looks really weird. Cam examined it too and she told me that she'd never seen that before, so I told them you'd probably figure it out if they couldn't." Booth knew that his partner was a genius and she could read bones like he could read a book.

"I am intrigued. It might be something I've seen before, but I will need to examine the bone before I can tell you for sure. Hopefully we can find out why the remains were in the water at the falls." Brennan had enjoyed examining the remains found in the cave while she was in Crete, but now she was home and she could continue her work at the Jeffersonian and with Booth.

Oooooooooooooo

Once they were home, Booth followed Brennan into the bedroom and watched her unload her suitcase. "You know that plane crash you were in scared the crap out of me . . . I'm glad you're home. I wanted to fly over there and . . . well, I don't have any vacation time left and you said you were okay and you don't lie to me, so . . . I'm glad you're okay."

Aware that her mate was staring at her intently, Brennan finished removing the clothes from the suitcase and carried the case over to the closet and placed it inside. After that, she placed her clean clothes in the dresser and took the bag of dirty clothes over to the chair next to the closet and placed it there. "As you can see I'm fine as I assured you numerous times. I received no injuries during the crash . . . I considered coming back home, but my expertise was needed in Crete and I couldn't let Dr. Aetos down. I am glad I was able to come home a week early. The skeletons have been examined and Dr. Aetos is having DNA tests done on all of them. She's curious and wishes to find out if there are any descendants living in Crete. She plans to have the remains interred at a cemetery in Heraklion. If she is successful and is able to find some descendants of the deceased then she will inform them that some of their ancestors have been found and invite them to the reburial of the remains . . . It was quite interesting and I appreciated the opportunity to work on that project."

Glad that Brennan had enjoyed the experience, Booth moved closer and placed his hands on her upper arms. "I'm glad you had fun. You deserve to have some fun doing your thing."

Kissing her man, Brennan moved her hands under Booth's shirt. "I have missed you and I would like to have sex . . . to make love to you. If you don't have to return to work."

"Ha! I took the day off. I have a lot of plans today and they all involve you." Booth moved his hand to the buttons on her blouse and began unbuttoning it. "It's been three weeks, Bones. Three long weeks."

Amused, Brennan laughed. "They have been very long weeks but I am home now."

Ooooooooooooo

Back at the Lab the next day and after an emotional greeting from both Angela and Hodgins, Brennan worked on emails and paperwork most of the morning. After lunch, she decided to check on the victim found at the waterfall and moved the set of bones to a table in one of the examination rooms. Before she had left her office, she had called Clark to let him know she was working on one of his cases and he could join her if he wished to.

Eager to see what Brennan thought of the victim, Clark entered the examination room, grabbed a pair of gloves and put them on. "Before I removed the flesh, I took numerous pictures of the remains so they're available for you to look at . . . As you can see the right hand is missing. Also, a portion of the skull is missing on the left side, from the supra-orbital notch to the infraorbital foramen . . . I found something odd after the bones were cleaned. If you look at the tibia on the left side, it appears to have extra layers of bone. It almost looks like a melting candle. Now, I've never seen this before, but I did some research and it's possible this is Melorheostosis."

As Clark explained his findings, Brennan nodded her head and picked up the left tibia. "I believe you may be correct. As you can see the left tibia is shorter than the right one . . . I have only seen this once before. The incidence of this disease is one in one million. The last time I checked, there have been 400 cases reported . . . it affects both men and women. It can cause a limited range of motion, pain and stiffness, swelling, vascular anomalies . . . about 50 percent of adults with this disease will develop symptoms by age 20."

"I read that there is no cure and since it's rare, there isn't a lot they can do for the person who has this. They just treat the symptoms . . . you know treatment would cost a lot of money and if this person was poor . . . maybe their family couldn't take care of them and . . . well." Clark didn't want to say that the family of the victim had killed him, but it might be a real possibility. "I can tell you that that the victim died from a skull fracture."

Slowly shaking her head, Brennan noticed that Clark appeared to be upset. "Who may have killed this man is just speculation at this point. First we will try to identify the remains then we will try to determine what happened to him. We must present Booth with as many facts as possible about the victim. Hopefully, someone has reported him missing. If not, that will make our job harder, but not impossible . . . We are just beginning our investigation, Dr. Edison . . . don't become discouraged. There may be another explanation about why he was killed . . . we will eventually discover that reason so for the moment, let's curtail our flights of imagination."

Encouraged, Clark nodded his head. "You're right. It is early days . . . I just feel sorry for the victim. He must have been in pain all the time and then he ends up dead near a waterfall. He was about thirty years old, so he didn't get to live a long life. Of course, the pain he was in . . . Yes, we have to put our feelings aside and work this case. I want to know who this is and why he was killed."

"I think Angela will be able to help us with the skull." Brennan placed the tibia down and stared at the heavily damaged skull. "Were any of the missing pieces of the skull found? Or the hand? Do you know if the place where the body laid in the water was searched?"

"I was there when Hodgins brought the skeleton up from the water. He went back into the water several times searching for the missing pieces but this was all he found. The pieces may have floated down river or they were never there in the first place. There wasn't a lot of tissue on the bones when it was recovered, so the remains may have been there for a while before it was found. I don't know how often tourists or hikers get that close to the falls. It was in a crevice in the riverbed away from the shore and the person who found it was using her camera to take pictures of the water and the riverbed. Booth said she's an artist and she likes to use nature for inspiration."

Leaning over, she picked up the skull and studied it. "I see . . ." Her attention now focused on the skull, she decided that Clark had done a fairly good job examining the remains. He had researched possible conditions of bones and seemed to be correct. "You may stay and watch me examine the remains or you may return to whatever you were working on and I will call you when I am done."

Since he was working on a set of remains that was purported to be Homo Erectus, he was more than willing for Brennan to examine the victims found at the waterfall. "I'll get back to work and wait for you to call me."

Alone, Brennan stared at the missing pieces of the skull trying to determine what was used to cause this amount of damage. "I hope Dr. Edison is wrong and your family did not do this to you."

Oooooooooooooooo

Let me know what you think of my story. I appreciate it.