"Hodgins I need a sample of the earth analyzed and zack can you go grab Christine Brennan's report file from 2001?" Cam said as she walked past the lab. She was talking about my mom, Christine. My name is temperance brennan and I am a forensic anthropologist working with the FBI to solve cases of murder, but I'm a lot more than my job. I am a train wreck of sadness that hides beneath the life I have built for myself. My parents disappeared right before Christmas when I was 15, and I grew up in foster care. My big brother had to abandon me, too. I don’t have family, and I have convinced myself that I am ok with that, but I know I am not. The person I am closest to is the FBI agent that I have been assigned to work with for just over three years now. His name is Seeley Booth, and I am on my way to see him now.
“Heyya Bones!” He says as I walk into his office and take a seat. I know that he needs to wrap stuff up before we can go out for coffee.
“I wish you wouldn’t call me that.” I say, even though I find the nickname he chose me to be quite fitting. He just gives my his typical “booth stare.” It means he knows something is bothering me.
“Hey I know they found your mom, and I can’t imagine how tough that might be. If you need to take a day off I can make a few calls-”
“No, Booth, I have lots of work to do.” And without even saying it I can tell he knows that work is the best thing for me right now. Science has never left my side, people have.
“Alrighty, well lets go bones! We got a body.” I grabbed my coat excitedly and we strolled out the door. Apparently the killer chose a particularly nice dump site, and by nice I mean its less then a 2 hour drive from the jeffersonian. The actual dump site however was a ditch on the side of the road, a not very nice place.
“Witnesses saw a body bag, don’t know of any missing people, and neither does the sheriff so I am guessing the killer drove it out here.” Booth pulls out his notecards for the case and starts jotting down little details he’d like to remember.
I pulled the black tarp off what I presumed to be the head, and I saw what would horrify most everyone. But not me, I see a face on every skull.
As I slide on my second glove I look for any age markers on the jaw, the first thing I ever do at a crime scene. “Female, late teens early twenties, and marks on her teeth indicate braces.”
“So probable college freshman, came from well off family, any ideas on race?”
“Definitely caucasian.”
“Alrighty I will run this through missing persons, lets go back to the lab.”
“Yeah.”
The identifications always seem so methodical, it feels unjust to the victims, the way they are all the same. The only thing that sets them apart is the love their family still has for them. Next thing I knew I was sitting at a picnic table and booth was jumping out of his car,
“Bones why are you crying? is it that time of month?”
Booth....
“I found myself thinking about my mother.”
He put his coffee down, and brushed the hair away from my cheeks. "That is not a surprise to me, I've seen it in your eyes ever since they found her. Cam says they are releasing her for burial today, so you know what? We are going to bury her right next to your dad, tonight. I think when she is at peace, you will be too."
Holding back tears of sadness and joy, I found myself smiling.
We drove back to the lab in silence, but this time it wasn't because we had nothing to say.
