Meggie
DreamboatAmy84
LilithBones: The Passenger in the Oven
January 15th 2009 22:48
On a plane en route to China, Bones is sleeping peacefully in first class as Booth is propped in his coach seat between two older ladies, one who is sleeping on his shoulder, the other who is engrossed in a mystery book. He turns his head in his neck pillow towards the lady reading and whispers, “Excuse me.”
“Just a minute.” She’s really into her book.
Booth sighs and tells her that he really needs to get out, but the woman next to him is sleeping. The book lady chuckles and finally looks at him. “It’s just that this book is so exciting! Do you like mysteries?”
“Well I’m an FBI Agent, so mysteries are sorta my thing.” He starts to turn to the sleeping woman again, but the other one interrupts, “I’m an aficionado myself.” She points to the sleeping woman. “I’m here with Nadine. She’s plotting the perfect murder for years now!” At Booth’s look, she quickly adds, “Just for fun.”
Booth smiles politely and tells her she can tell him all about it later, but right now “I really gotta get out. I gotta go.”
“Right. When you gotta go, you gotta go.”
Booth carefully props Nadine up in her seat as he scoots out past her friend. Finally with some room to stretch, Booth makes his way down the aisle and through the curtain into first class. He arrives just in time to see a kid stealing liquor off the flight attendant cart.
“Hey,” he asks. “How old are you?”
He shows the kid his badge, and the boy just rolls his eyes. “Come on, we’re at 36,000 ft. That’s outside the three mile limit.”
“This is American soil until we touchdown in Shanghai, alright? So come on, hand ‘em over.”
The kid sighs but hands over the bottles and his dad turns around in his seat. “What are you doing now? You know your mother isn’t feeling well.” He looks at Booth. “Is he bothering you?”
The boy gives Booth a panicked look, and Booth just smiles. “No, we were just talkin’.”
“Yeah,” the boy says, relieved. “You can sleep Dad, it’s all good.”
His dad goes back to sleep and Booth motions “I’m watching you” to the kid, who just shrugs it off.
Booth sits down next to his sleeping partner and starts to open up her first class goodies. He pulls out her slippers, glances around to see if anyone is looking, then puts one on his hand and pretends it’s a puppet as he wakes her up.
“Huh? Wha-Booth,” Bones wakes up, confused.
“Wow, look at this. I don’t even get a hot meal and you get pajamas and slippers?”
“The basic amenities,” Bones answers, as if it’s obvious. “The flight is over 13 hours.”
Yeah he knows, seeing as how he’s spent the last eight hours of them back in coach. Booth finds the lever to lean his seat back and groans, “Ah, yes!” He’s loving this first class thing. Bones grabs her slipper off his hand and reminds him that he’s not allowed to be up here.
“What? We’re a team, okay? This is government business” Booth answers, adding, “You shouldn’t have paid for your own ticket, you know.” His finds another button and his eyes light up. “Ooo! A massager!” Booth starts to make the “Bzzzing” noises of the massager and Bones watches a flight attendant walk up.
“Sir, you need to return to coach.”
Booth opens his eyes, stops buzzing, and whispers, “We’re partners. We like being together.”
“Your sexual relationship is not relevant Sir. This is first class.”
“Why does everyone else think we have a sexual relationship?” Bones asks Booth, annoyed. “I mean we barely ever even touch each other.”
Okay, Booth’ll take care of it. He gets up and shows the woman his badge. He explains that he’s an FBI agent and Bones is his partner, and that they’re going to China so she can “Help the Chinese government identify some real old Chinese dude.”
The flight attendant just nods as Bones explains that the remains were found in a cave and are over 40,000 years old. Booth adds that “According to Title 18, Section 1831, I must protect the proprietary American technology Dr. Brennan will be using. So it is my patriotic duty to be right next to her.” He sits back down. “Here. Like a bodyguard.” He leans the seat back again.
“This trip is taking me back to my real passion,” Bones tells the flight attendant, leaning back in her seat and getting ready to readjust her eye sleeping mask. “Prehistoric anthropologic discoveries.”
Booth looks at his partner, hurt.
“Fascinating,” The flight attendant tells them both then addresses Booth. “Sir. You have to go back to your seat.”
Bones gives him a sympathetic look. “Sorry.”
Frustrated, Booth sits his seat back up.
“Right now,” The flight attendant urges politely.
Booth gets up, but can’t help himself. He leans over the seat and taps on his partner’s shoulder. “Bones. Bones!” She takes off her mask to look at him. “What do you mean your ‘real passion’? I thought us working together was your real passion.
“You two can take up this fight again after we land,” The flight attendant answers before Bones can.
Booth glances between the two women then sighs. “Alright.” He grabs Bones’s first class kit and—
“Watch your head—”
“Ow!” The flight attendant’s warning was too late. Booth hits his head on the overhead baggage compartment, and the flight attendant gives him a ‘maybe you deserved that’ look as Bones asks, “You okay?”
“Yeah I’m fine,” Booth answers grimly, stilling holding his head. He turns to leave. “Kicking me back to the cattle class, you know that’s not right.”
“Enjoy your flight, Sir.” The flight attendant closes the curtains behind him as the boy from before sneaks another drink off the cart.
~*~*~
Back in the lab, everyone is getting ready to leave for the night.
Sweets: So the cat’s away and it’s TGIF, huh?
Cam: I’m right here. I’m the cat.
They, Angela, and Hodgins continue to walk towards the door as Sweets says, “Well in this case I think Dr. Brennan is the cat.”
“I’m the cat” Cam assures. “Who’s giving the mice the rest of the day off.”
“So Daisy and I were wondering if any of you would like to join us for a little competitive karaoke this evening.” Nobody says anything, and he adds, “Some pre-weekend, fun? Huh?” Sweets nudges Hodgins’s shoulder. “I’m singing ‘Lime in the Coconuts’!”
Hodgins tells him he’s sorry but he’s going to be biking the Virginia creeper trail. Angela tells him that she and Roxy are going to an artists’ retreat, and when Sweets turns to Cam, she quickly says that she’s going to be driving Angela to the train station.
Angela: You are?
Cam: Yes. I am.
Roxy shows up and the three ladies head off. Hodgins watches them go, and asks Sweets, “Do you think…?”
“What do you think?”
Hodgins gets mad when Sweets just keeps answering his questions with questions, and finally leaves, frustrated that Sweets doesn’t get that it does matter that Angela’s with Roxy now after they were engaged.
“You know, a little karaoke might help you unwind!” Sweets calls after him. “Especially when I’m singing…Beautiful tenor.”
~*~*~
Back in coach, Booth can’t sit still. “Excuse me.” He gets up and the mystery book lady tells him, “You should have your prostate checked!”
Booth peeks through the curtains into first class and watches the flight attendant head downstairs. He sneaks back in, stealing the liquor bottle from the kid on his way, and sits back down next to Bones.
“Bones, Bones,” he whispers.
“Huh?” She pulls off her mask and ear phones. “You’re gonna get in trouble.”
“She’s downstairs,” he tells her, something else on his mind. “You didn’t answer me before. Are you tired of working with me?”
“No, it’s not that,” she assures him. “But the identification and analysis of ancient remains, that’s why I became a forensic anthropologist.”
“You’re bored,” Booth says sadly. “Huh? The spark is gone.”
“I’m a scientist first.”
“Right.” Booth tries to convince himself. “Yeah, a scientist first, yeah I get it. I understand.”
She watches him put on a sleep mask and taps his arm, “Hey if you get caught up here does that make me an accessory?”
“An accessory to an upgrade,” Booth answers, sliding his mask down over his eyes. He whistles, as he leans his chair back. “Oh yeah!”
Bones just grins and puts her mask back on.
“That is Heaven,” Booth says as they both lay there in peace. For about two seconds.
A scream suddenly jolts them both back up in their seats. Booth pulls off his mask and is on his feet immediately. His partner follows. “Bones, down there.”
They both head downstairs to find the flight attendant pointing a horrified finger at a very burned corpse sitting in the oven. Bones pulls off her mask and wipes the sleep from her eyes as Booth says, “That’s a, a body right?”
Yep.
~*~*~
Booth and Bones interview the captain, who says he can account for himself and the copilot, but they’d have to ask the flight attendant about the rest of the cabin crew. Said flight attendant is currently in shock and, as Bones points out, “She’s not speaking.” Booth reminds his partner that “not everyone brushes off these horrible experiences,” and goes over to gently ask the woman what her name is. She doesn’t answer.
Booth leans over and tries again, “What’s your first name?”
The woman looks up. “Katherine. Kate.”
“Kate,” he glances at the pilot and Bones, then turns back to Kate, gently telling her, “Okay Kate, what you saw down there? You don’t ever have to see again.” She nods and begins absently playing with his tie as he asks her if she’s missing any people. Kate mutters that she can still smell the body, and Bones helpfully points out, “It’s very much like roast pork.”
“Bones,” Booth interrupts before she can go on, then uncaps a bottle of water and tells Kate that he just wants her to have a little water “because we might need your help.”
“Need her help, for what?” The Captain asks. “We fly to China and call the cops.”
“No, no, no,” Booth corrects. “You’re gonna turn this puppy around and we’re gonna head back home.”
“No can do,” The Captain answers. “We passed the point of no return fuel-wise 23 minutes ago.”
Bones points out that their flight route takes them over Greenland. Can’t they stop there to refuel?
“Not with the weather they’re having.”
The Captain tells them not to worry, they have cops in China. Booth is not amused. “Until these wheels touchdown, this is sovereign US territory.” Getting frustrated, the Captain replies, “Look FBI Guy, you do whatever you want as long as it doesn’t endanger this flight. But in four hours we’re on sovereign Chinese territory.” He leaves.
Bones walks over to Kate, speaking slowly and loudly, “Excuse me? Before you become completely catatonic? Can you tell me how to access the internet? I need to contact my people.”
Kate just stares at her.
“Bones, you don’t have to shout,” Booth says. “She’s in shock, not deaf.”
~*~*~
Back at The Jeffersonian everyone gets called back. Hodgins enters with his bike gear and backpack still on, sure that the message he just got can’t be right. Cam tells him she’d rather brief everyone when they all get there, and they both look up to see Sweets walk in. In place of his usual suit, he’s wearing a white polo shirt and plaid shorts.
Hodgins can’t hold back his amusement. “Wow, is that what you really look like?”
“Cam said an emergency, I didn’t have time to—” He turns to Cam. “I think maybe your message was garbled.”
Angela and Roxie come back in dragging their luggage behind them. Like everyone else, Angela is confused. “There was a murder on Brennan’s plane to China?”
“Good, we’re all here,” Cam says.
Angela suddenly notices Sweets’s attire. “What are you, like 16?”
Sweets doesn’t get what everyone is talking about. “I love these shorts!”
Cam gets them all back on track, telling them about the body found in the microwave oven on Booth and Bones’s flight. Roxie leaves.
Sweets: And I’m here because?
Cam: You were on my speed dial.
Right. Everyone starts to head to their areas, but Hodgins hesitates, asking Cam the significance of two people going off together and packing one bag. It means something right? Cam tries to think of a way out of it, but can’t, and finally admits, “Yeah it means something.” She hastily exits before Hodgins can continue.
~*~*~
Back on the plane, Booth finds his seatmates again and asks the woman who’s awake if she might have a measuring tape and tweezers. Charlotte’s eyes light up. “There’s been a murder!” She turns to her sleeping friend. “Nadine! Nadine, they need tweezers for an autopsy!”
“Shhh, no!” Booth looks around, hoping no one heard her.
“Code red—”
“Shh! No, no code red, don’t wake Nadine up.” He finally gets her attention and promises he’ll explain everything to her later, but right now he just needs those things.
Charlotte starts digging through her purse, saying, “I didn’t hear a gunshot, so it must have been a knifing. I saw Dr. Temperance Brennan, the mystery writer, in first class. I bet she’s doing the autopsy!” She turns back to Booth. “Listen, I was awake the whole time, and anyone who went that way—” she points to the front of the plane, “—they came back again. So if the victim is a passenger, he or she is in first class. Probably she since most murder victims are women.”
Charlotte goes back to looking in her purse, and Booth mutters, “Wow, you really are into murder, aren’t you?”
She hands him what he needs, and Booth starts to leave.
“Wait!” Booth turns around, and she holds up a knitting needle. “Dr. Brennan will need this.”
Booth just stares at it. “What’s that’s for?”
“It’s a probe!” Booth takes it wordlessly, and the woman grins. “This is the best flight I’ve ever been on!”
Back downstairs, Bones is taking pictures of the body to send to everyone back at The Jeffersonian. Angela is talking to her on the computer, “we have a solid link here, so you should be able to beam us all the digital photos you can.” Bones tells her that they’ve isolated the crime scene and they’ll try to compromise the crime scene as little as possible.
Booth joins her, holding up the knitting needle. “Look what I got.”
“Oh a probe, that’s great. I didn’t think of that.”
“Yeah, lucky I did.”
“Hey Booth,” Angela says from the computer. “Good flight so far?”
“Yeah I’m havin’ trouble sleeping.”
Cam joins Angela. “Looks like you managed to get the remains out of the oven.”
“Yeah, they’re a kind of…” he glances down at the charred remains. “Well, they, they’ve kind of fallen apart there.” Suddenly he notices something. “Hey Bones, did you knock the phone off this cradle?”
No, it wasn’t her.
~*~*~
Booth goes back to talk to the pilot and two flight attendants. “Who else has access to the galley down there?”
“All of us.”
“It’s kind of our getaway place to chill out from passengers.”
Booth asks who the last person to use the phone was, and the other flight attendant, Theresa, admits that it was her. He jokingly asks her if she’s a spy or a smuggler, and Kate answers that “she’s in love.” And Theresa’s boyfriend works for the same airline at the Shanghai airport.
The Captain looks at the flight attendant. “That’s against the rules.”
“So is having sex with passengers in the bathroom,” Theresa cuts back.
He nervously glances between everyone else and says, “Okay, I think we’re all under a lot of stress here.”
The flight attendant tells Booth that she used the phone right after dinner. “There was no dead body cooking in the microwave.” He tells both flight attendants to go do a seat count and tell him which passengers were missing, and gives the Pilot a look as he quickly heads back to the front of the plane.
~*~*~
Back in the lab, Cam tells Bones that they’ve found out the victim had brown hair, maybe red. Bones estimates her height to be about 157 cm. Hodgins wants to know what’s up with her fingernails. Judging from the burn marks, he guesses she was wearing fake fingernails.
Booth relays the description back to the flight attendants, and Kate remembers a woman who fits the description. “Seat 3B, Elizabeth Jones.”
She and Booth walk back into the cabin and Booth wakes up Elizabeth’s seatmate. The man says he doesn’t remember the woman he was sitting next to because he took a sleeping pill. He looks at them groggily. “Are we in China?”
Booth gets distracted. “Wait a sec, you spend seven grand on a flight and then sleep through the whole thing? You don’t even eat first?”
“Excuse me, Agent Booth?” The father of the boy who was stealing liquor off the car gets up and introduces himself as Arthur Bilbrey. He tells Booth that his wife, Anne, is very sick and he’d appreciate it if she could get some sleep before they land.
“I’m fine,” Anne assures her husband. “Relax.”
Suddenly her son stands up, clearly drunk. “You better be quiet or, I’ll take you down FBI!” the kid slurs. His dad introduces him as Eli, and Eli falls back in his seat, grinning. “I got your back, Mom.”
~*~*~
Caroline walks into the lab, on the phone with Booth. He tells her the name of the victim, then hangs up when he notices she’s made it into the lab. She shuts off her phone and stares at the monitor. “Well now that’s just strange.” She waves. “Let me uh, let me make a call and get back to you.”
Caroline walks off, and Cam tells Booth and Bones that Angela and Hodgins noticed a shadow on the exposed part of the sternum. Bones noticed it too, but she can’t ID it. She takes pictures for Angela.
Caroline’s back. She tells them that their victim was a travel writer for DC Voyager Magazine. Booth tells her she’s got to get over to the magazine, and Caroline asks why. Because they might know why she got murdered, that’s why.
“You got this backward, Cherie,” Caroline tells Booth. “I am not an investigator.”
“Well neither am I, and yet here I am taking apart another murder victim,” Bones answers, and Booth quickly interrupts that she should just go talk to the boss, secretaries, whatever and pretend that they’re on the stand. “Take Sweets with you.”
“If you want me to do this, you have to make a good case.”
“What you do to what?” Bones asks.
“If you want me to take on the Chinese government, the State Department, the FAA, and the NTSB, and for all I know, the UN, you make me a damn fine solid case.”
Nobody has an argument for that one.
~*~*~
Later on, Booth stands by as Bones continues her examination of the victim’s skull.
“Ugh, Bones can you turn her around so she’s not lookin’ at us?”
“She’s deceased, Booth, she can’t see.” Bones continues to pick off parts of the scalp and drop them into a nearby metal bowl, using the coffee pot to fill it with hot water.
“Ah man,” Booth mumbles, keeping his back to the remains. When he hears her pour the water into the bowl, his curiosity gets the better of him, and Booth turns around just in time to watch an eye float to the top. He quickly turns away. “I am definitely not a squint.”
“I’ve always known that,” Bones answers, completely oblivious to the fact that this is making him very uncomfortable. “You have no training in the field of forensic science.”
“I really don’t want any,” Booth answers, trying not to look.
Bones starts looking through the contents of the bowl, voicing how they need not only to ID the victim, but the killer. She picks something out of the water with her tweezers, and Booth finally can’t take it anymore.
“What do you need?”
“A magnifying lens,” she answers, not taking her eyes off her work.
“Okay. Right.” Booth rushes out to find one.
Booth heads back to his seat row to ask Charlotte if she has a magnifying lens. “You know, for the fine print.” She looks up from his book and tells him that her eyesight is perfect. She asks if the magnifying glass is for examining the victim’s corpse, and Booth notices Nadine’s thick glasses hanging around the sleeping woman’s neck.
“You don’ t think Nadine would mind if I a—” He leans over to take them as Charlotte answers, “She’d be thrilled if she were awake! She sleeps like a log.” Booth gets the glasses and stands back up, and she asks, “Now what equipment would Dr. Brennan normally use in this situation?”
“I don’t know,” he answers. “I’m more of a people person.” With that, Booth is off.
~*~*~
Back at the lab, Angela is trying to us the same sort of procedure she uses to restore a painting to figure out what the shadow on the victim’s sternum is. Standing behind watching, Hodgins asks if Roxie went to the retreat without her. She distractedly tells him that no, they’re going to do something there instead.
“Right.”
Angela looks up. “Don’t say it like that.”
“What?”
She just shakes her head, and Hodgins apologizes. They turn their attention back to the computer screen.
“What do you think?” Angela asks. “Candle wax?”
Hodgins picks up on something reflective, and Angela gets the computer working on it.
~*~*~
“Bones—” Booth walks in to find Bones wearing Nadine’s thick black, cat eye glasses and stops, grinning. She simply stares back at him.
Unable to let the opportunity pass him up, Booth teases, “Alright, what I want you to do, is take of your glasses—” He steps towards her. “—Shake out your hair—” He leans in, smirking down at her. “—And say, ‘Mr. Booth. Do you know what the penalty is for an overdue book?’”
Bones stares at him. “Why?”
Booth steps back. “Never mind.”
Bones shows him the fractures on the skull suggesting that the victim was hit. With what? Well, she’ll have to take an impression to find out. In order to do that, she’s going to need denture cream, baby powder, and a butane lighter. Booth heads out to find everything.
Bones watches him go, then, curious, takes off her gloves, removes the glasses, shakes out her hair, and waits for something to happen. When nothing does, she frowns and puts the glasses back on, pulling her hair back up.
~*~*~
“Sorry dear, but these are my real choppers,” Charlotte tells Booth. “And Nadine’s are real too. Is Dr. Brennan making a cast of her injury?” she asks. “That’s what she’d do in her book!”
“Hit the lights,” Booth calls to Theresa, and she turns on the cabin lights, telling the passengers that Agent Booth would like to talk to them. Booth gets on the intercom and asks if anyone has denture cream, baby powder, or a butane lighter. Theresa tells him that lighters are “strictly forbidden on the aircraft,” and Booth leans over and whispers, “So is murder.”
Booth gets the denture cream and powder pretty fast, but no one seems to have a lighter. He waits. No one raises their hand. “Come on, no one has a lighter?”
Finally, Theresa pulls a lighter from her pocket and sneaks it into Booth’s hand. He gives her a surprised look.
“I confiscated it.”
“Obviously.”
~*~*~
Bones is impressed by how good the makeshift plaster is working, and Booth points out that this has to be more interesting that the Chinese caves and thousand-year-old remains. She just gives him a look. Well it was worth a try.
“Is this gonna work?”
“It should.” Bones pulls out the lighter and Booth gets up off the stairs to join her, dryly answering, “You’re just fillin’ me up with confidence right now.”
Bones finishes with the lighter and pulls off the perfect mold of the murder weapon. “Now all we have to do is find the item that matches this, and we have our weapon.”
“Right. That’s all, huh?”
“Well at least we know it’s on the airplane,” Bones offers.
Cam blinks on via the computer. “Any luck with cause of death?”
“Yeah, someone knocked her on the head and it exploded on the cranium thing,” Booth answers, waving towards the general direction of the skull.
Cam asks Bones to look at the burns around the rectus abdominus, and Bones hesitates, admitting that she dislikes the inclusive nature of tissue. Cam tells her to just think of it as “bone wrapping”, and asks if the pinkish discoloration from the photos are on the body.
“Pinkish is a subjective term and I’m not comfortable applying a subjective evaluation to evidence that’s not—”
“It’s pinkish,” Booth interrupts. “And gross-ish.”
“Okay, that indicates presence of blood flow at the time she was cooked,” Cam answers.
“She was still alive in the microwave?” Booth asks, horrified. “How long was she in there?”
Cam asks if Bones can describe the breast tissue, and once again, Bones doesn’t know how to qualify what she sees in descriptive terms. Once again, it’s Booth to the rescue. “Well, if she was a turkey, she’d be dry and overdone.”
“Okay, that means she had to be cooking for about 6 ˝ hours,” Cam says.
They have time of death.
“If I were you, I’d get some tissue samples,” Cam suggests.
Bones is impressed. “Sometimes flesh can be quite informative.”
As Bones begins collecting samples, Booth wanders around with the mold until, ah-ha! He finds a match to the latch on the oven. Looks like they found the murder weapon. Booth nudges the oven door open with his foot, and they find an old band-aid on the floor. Bones grabs her camera to take a crime scene photo.
~*~*~
Caroline and Sweets go to talk to the victim’s boss, who tells them that he can’t think of anyone who would want her dead. He also tells them that this trip wasn’t for work, it was for pleasure. She’d just finished an expose for the magazine. A piece on pilots who’ve hid drunk driving convictions from their employers.
~*~*~
Back on the plane, Booth finds Bones wandering around opening drawers and cupboards looking for something. He spots a small container in her hand and asks what it is.
“Tissue samples.”
“Oh no, don’t—”He quickly closes the curtains. “—Don’t let people see that.”
“I need vodka,” Bones says, still looking, and Booth just answers, “Yeah well, I do to Bones, but you know what? We’re working.”
She gives him a strange look. “To preserve the tissue samples. All they’ve got left is bourbon and scotch.”
“Hold on.”
Booth goes back to Eli. “Come on.”
The kid just glares back at him. “What?”
Booth holds out his hand, telling him to hand over the vodka. Eli begrudgingly hands it over, and Booth glances at the kid’s mom and back. “Look,” he says, leaning in so as not to be overheard by anyone else. “Obviously your mom is sick and you love her. And that’s probably while you’re acting badly, but what you’ve gotta do, is you gotta think—really think—about how to help her.”
“She’s gonna die,” Eli answers. Gone is his attitude now. “And what am I supposed to do about that?”
“Make her proud of you,” Booth answers.
His phone rings, and Booth heads back up to the front of the plane as he talks to Caroline. She tells him about the story the victim had just completed, and the fact that the pilot flying their plane right now just happens to be in the article.
“Thanks Caroline.”
~*~*~
Booth sends the copilot out and sits down in his seat. He asks the pilot if the name Elizabeth Jones sounds familiar. It doesn’t. Booth tells him what Elizabeth’s article was on, and the pilot still pretends not to know what he’s talking about.
“2002, DUI, you never reported that to the FAA,” Booth reminds. “You know, that is a $250,000 fine and uh, five years in jail.”
“That DUI charge was the day of my dad’s funeral,” the pilot defends himself. “I know it’s not stylish, but I happen to love my old man.”
“Well it’s still a motive legal wise,” Booth tells him.
“I did not kill her. I didn’t even know she existed.”
“I need you to slow this plane down.”
“Why?”
“Well, to give us time to find out who did, unless it was you, and in that case, time? Well, it doesn’t matter,” Booth says.
The pilot thinks about this a moment, realizing he doesn’t have any choice, and tells Booth that he can report electrical issues. That’ll maybe give them an extra hour. Great. Booth will take that as a sign of cooperation.
~*~*~
Caroline has left and now it’s just Sweets and Elizabeth Jones’s boss. Sweets, who stayed quite most of the time Caroline was there, now has some questions of his own to ask.
“Hey, I answered all of the questions the scary woman asked,” the guy says, and Sweets agrees that Caroline can be a little scary.
“See the thing is, she’s a lawyer so she’s very direct.”
“Scary.”
“She has a knack for putting people into federal prison,” Sweets says. “I believe she likes to do it. I, on the other hand, have a more psychological mojo.”
The guy gives him a skeptical look. “You don’t look like you have a mojo.”
Sweets’s smile fades. He’s more interested in Elizabeth Jones’s personal life. The victim’s boss insists that he didn’t have an affair with her, but admits that yes, he did want to. Sweets asks if Miss Jones was the type to have affairs, and when the man hesitates, he tells him, “I can go get Ms. Julian again if you’re more comfortable with her.”
“Arty. All I know is Arty.”
Okay then, let’s talk about Elizabeth and Arty. “How resentful were you that Elizabeth slept with him and not with you?” Sweets asks.
“Well he’s married and I’m not. So yeah, I’m a little resentful.”
~*~*~
Hodgins walks in to find Angela staring at the photo of the band-aid. They manage to find out the circumference of the finger, and Hodgins points out that the finger was probably locked in a bent position. That would explain the creases. Angela highlights the creases and finds out that the owner of the band-aid has his finger bent at 90 degrees.
“I really love—” she stops, realizing what she’s saying and finishes, “—working with you.”
“Me too,” Hodgins answers. “We’re really good together…At…these things.”
There is a moment of sad smiles, then Hodgins starts to leave. He almost gets to the door, then can’t stand it anymore. He swings around. “Gotta ask you something Angela.”
“Yeah I got that from the fast double-back.” She walks over.
“This thing with Roxie.”
“It’s real, yeah.”
“No I got that, I see that,” he answers. “Is that what got between us?”
“I’d love to say yes to that,” Angela answers. “Because I think that it would make you feel better.”
“But you can fall in love with a man…”
“I’m sorry, but yes.”
Hodgins nods sadly and leaves.
“Ang?” Bones’s voice comes from the darkened computer and Angela suddenly remembers that her best friend has heard everything that just happened.
“Sweetie, totally forgot that you were there.” Angela brings Bones up on the screen. “So I guess you heard everything, huh?”
“Yes, it was fascinating.”
“Well what do you think?”
“Well the only joint that will bend over 90 degrees is between the proximal and intermediate phalanges,” Bones answers.
“Right. Finger stuff…”
Bones describes the man they’re looking for and Angela answers, “That’s great, sweetie, but what about the rest of the conversation?”
“I’m sorry Ang, I wasn’t paying attention,” Bones answers. “I need to go find a passenger with trigger finger.”
“Thanks for the talk.”
~*~*~
Bones gets over the intercom, introduces herself (“the writer?” “yes), and starts to tell the passengers that they’re looking for someone “with a laceration on their locked interphalangeal joint. So if everyone can look at their neighbor’s—”
Booth notices everyone’s confused blank stares and steals the phone from his partner. “I’ll tell you what, who would like a free signed copy of Dr. Brennan’s new book?” Everyone raises their hands. “Look at that, huh?”
Bones grins, nudging him in the shoulder. “Ah I see what you’re doing.”
“Keep your hands up high so Dr. Brennan can count the number of books we need.” Booth announces, and Bones starts to walk down the aisle checking out everyone’s fingers. To keep everyone occupied, Booth asks, “Hey does anyone have a question for Dr. Brennan?”
“Are you working on anything now Dr. Brennan?” Charlotte calls out. Nadine is finally awake and raising her hand as well.
“Yes,” Bones answers. “Keep your hands up.”
“What is that delicious smell?” Nadine calls out.
“Roast pork,” Bones answers, exchanging a look with Booth.
Booth quickly answers, “That delicious smell is the difference between first class and coach. How we doin’ there, Bones?”
Bones finally finds the man with the trigger finger. “Booth? Over here.” She grabs the man’s hand.
“Uh, hi,” the man says, confused as to why she’s so interested in his hand.
Booth joins her and asks the man for his name.
“Just sign it to ‘Awesome Nick Devito’. What’s the big deal? I just got a little trigger finger, I injured my tendon.”
“You like shooting a lot?” Booth asks him.
“Yeah I love shooting,” he answers, quickly adding, “Doesn’t mean I’m not a reader.”
Booth tells him to come with them. Up at the front of the plane, Nick tells them that he doesn’t know any Elizabeth Jones. Booth gets on the phone with Sweets and asks if he’s still with Elizabeth’s editor. He is.
“Okay, ask him if he knows someone named Nick Devito.”
“Is this like a question to get my free book?” Nick asks.
Sweets asks the editor if he’s ever heard of Nick and Bones asks Nick where his band-aid went. Nick doesn’t know. It must have fallen off when he was asleep. “I twitch. I’m twitchy.”
Elizabeth’s editor has never heard of Nick, but he did have lunch with Danny Devito once.
Sweets tells Booth about Elizabeth’s affair with a man known only as Arty. “He’s married. His wife is sick, and his kid is a pain in the ass.”
Booth glances through the curtain at Eli’s dad. “Sweets, you are the man of the hour. I owe you a beer and a rye chaser my friend.”
“Sounds like it would make me sick,” Sweets answers.
Booth hangs up and tells Nick he can go back to his seat.
“Why?” Bones asks.
Booth nods towards Eli’s dad. “Well, we have a much better suspect.”
~*~*~
The digital flight path map at the front of the plane shows they’re almost to the Star signifying their landing in China.
Booth walks up behind Arthur Bilbrey, telling him that he thinks he knows why he’s there. Arthur apologizes for his son. “He’s a teenager, he’s very ill.”
“It’s not about your son, Arty,” Booth tells him. “It’s about Elizabeth Jones.”
Arthur glances at his wife, then walks off to the side with Booth, admitting that his wife “doesn’t know about EJ and I’d like to keep it that way.”
Booth asks if Elizabeth Jones asked him to leave his wife, and Arthur tells him that he told her from the beginning that that would never happen. His first priority is “to be a good husband and a good father.”
“By dragging a dying woman to China?” Booth asks.
Arthur tells him that to stand on the Great Wall of China has been his wife’s dream since she was a little girl. This was their last chance to do something amazing as a family. So Elizabeth followed him? Yes. And he killed her? “Of course not!”
Arthur tells Booth that he’s a lawyer. He did confront Elizabeth about following him, but he didn’t kill her. “You have no evidence and very little time before we land. If you want to find out who killed EJ, I suggest you not waste any more time with me.”
Angela, Hodgins, and Caroline are talking to Booth and Bones about the shiny substance they found in the body. Angela enhanced it, and it looks like silicon.
“Fake boobs? How does that help?” Booth asks.
“Silicon, not silicone,” Bones answers, and Hodgins says it’s probably a chip from a camera or some other electronic device, but they’ll need to see it to make a positive ID.
Caroline asks how it went with Arty, and Booth tells her he’s a lawyer. “Ah he’s an attorney, he’s not saying much of anything.”
“And the gun nut Devito?”
“Most likely his band-aid was stuck to the wheel of a food cart,” Bones answers.
Caroline tells them to find her the smoking gun, “Or that killer disappears into a billion people when you land.”
“1.29 billion,” Bones corrects. “Approximately.” Suddenly, she asks, “Are you pressuring us?”
“Have a lovely flight.” Caroline walks off.
~*~*~
The pilot is back to tell them that they just arrested a man named Felix who works for the airline. He was passing stolen credit card numbers.
“That’s fascinating, but we’re more interested in solving a murder investigation right now,” Booth tells him.
“All the credit card numbers were from passengers on this plane,” the pilot answers. And the guy is their flight attendant’s boyfriend.
~*~*~
Theresa admits to stealing the credit card numbers, but she didn’t kill Elizabeth Jones. She heard someone coming and hid in the aeronautics compartment. She couldn’t hear who was with Elizabeth because of all the noise from the airplane, and all she could see was the killer’s feet. She can’t even say if the killer was male or female because they were wearing the slippers everyone in first class gets. The killer walked by and Theresa ran upstairs.
Well great.
Booth and Bones talk after Theresa leaves, and Bones points out that whoever killed Elizabeth would have blood on their slippers. Booth points out that she doesn’t have an ALS light, and “not even those dotty old mystery buffs carry that in their giant purses.”
“We could make one.”
“Oh yeah, make one,” Booth says sarcastically, and the pilot tells them that if they’re going to do it, they better do it fast because they’re going to be landing soon. Booth reminds him that he’s not landing this plane “until I tell you you land this plane, okay? Remember, you’re still a suspect.”
“It’s not about me or you,” the pilot answers. “We’re going to run out of fuel in 20 minutes.”
~*~*~
“Okay, Booth? We need the blue lamp out of the overhead projector,” Bones announces. Booth gets it out as Bones goes back to ask Nick if he has any yellow-tinted shooting glasses.
“Sure, what do you need?” Nick pulls out his box. “Daylight, artificial light, or moonlight?”
“Let’s see.” Bones finds a pair that’ll work and puts them on. “Thanks.”
“This is brilliant!” Charlotte says. “They’re making an ALS emitter!”
“What’s that for?” Nick asks.
“To find blood,” Nadine answers easily.
Booth calls for the lights to be cut, and Bones follows him through first class as he shines the blue light over everyone’s feet. She finally spots blood-covered slippers. “Over there.”
“You sure?”
“Yes, over there.”
Booth pulls the blanket off Eli and calls for the lights to be turned back on. Arthur stands up, asking what’s going on, and Bones tells him that his son killed Elizabeth Jones. Booth quickly asks the flight attendant how much time they have before they land, and she answers, “We’re on our final descent.”
“Eli? That’s impossible,” his dad answers.
“Oh why, you can’t think of motive like, I don’t know, maybe he loves his mother?” Booth asks, dialing quickly. “He wants to keep his family together, huh?”
Caroline and Cam are on the line as Booth tells Caroline that he’s ready to make an arrest, he needs her to sign the warrant. Is he sure? Well, it’s circumstantial, “but it’s compelling, so do you have a warrant to sign?”
“Yes.”
“Well, then sign it so I can make the arrest.”
“Just a minute, please,” Arthur interrupts.
“That’s the lawyer isn’t it?” Caroline asks over the phone. “You can always tell a damn lawyer.”
“I represent my son, who is also a minor incidentally.”
“Minor?” Caroline asks, suddenly hesitant.
“A minor murderer,” Bones points out.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we are making our final descent into Shanghai International Airport. Please return your seats to the upright position and turn off all electronic devices.”
Bones looks out the window as Cam says, “Booth, you’re cutting it pretty close there.”
“Yeah I know!”
Eli, now awake, looks around confused. What’s going on?
“We know you killed Elizabeth Jones,” Bones tells him.
“Probably why you wanted to get so drunk, huh Eli?” Booth asks hastily. The kid glances back and forth between them nervously, and his father warns him not to say a word. He points out that Booth is trying to arrest his son based on the fact that there are blood stains on the bottom of his slippers that could belong to anyone in first class.
“Booth,” Caroline urges, and Booth quickly tells her, “Motive: the father was cheating on the dying wife with the victim.”
“Arthur…” Anne looks at her husband, shocked.
“You thought the family was safe by getting away from the woman,” Booth quickly tells Eli, and Bones suddenly interrupts, “Booth, we’re really close to the ground.”
“She shows up on the plane, IN first class—” Booth continues.
“Not a word Eli.”
“Booth, I can see people, we have less than 30 seconds!”
“Booth!”
“Caroline, you gotta trust me on this.”
“Make the case Agent Booth. Something more than motive.”
“Bones—”
“Booth—”
“Yeah?”
He turns around to see Bones holding Eli’s video game. There’s a chip missing, and if that computer chip turns out to be the chip embedded in the victim, then they have proof. Booth grabs the game and tells Caroline they have forensic cooperation.
“If, she said IF!” Eli’s dad shouts.
“Sign it,” Cam urges Caroline.
The plane is practically touching the runway.
“The moment this plane touches down, I lose jurisdiction!” Booth warns.
The wheels are mere feet from the ground.
Caroline turns to Cam. “This better be a good—”
“Sign the warrant!” Cam interrupts, quickly adding “please” at Caroline’s look.
“Okay,” Caroline says into the phone. “Make the arrest.”
Booth swings around from the window, lowering the phone. “Eli Bilbrey I am placing you under arrest for the murder of Elizabeth Jones, anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law because this is the United States of America!”
The wheels touchdown and everyone grabs onto their seats. Booth and Bones exchange a look. That was just a little too close for comfort. The passengers begin to clap, and Bones smiles. “Thank you, thank you very much! Thank you!” She waves to them, nodding. “Thank you.”
“Bones,” Booth gets her attention. “The applause is for the landing.”
“Ah, yes,” Bones answers, frowning. “I always wondered why people did that.”
~*~*~
Angela and Roxie are having a drink. Angela tells her they caught the murderer, but he was 16. Not such a great day. Angela asks Roxie to stay with her, as in move in, and Roxie realizes this is a huge step for Angela. She’s never asked anyone to move in with her before. Right, but “why aren’t you saying anything?” Roxie hesitates, and Angela realizes it’s because she’s going to say no. Why? Neither of them are ready. Angela laughs sadly. “I’m always the one to say that.”
~*~*~
“Look what I found?” Booth appears with a bottle of champagne and two glasses. “There’s that smile.” He hands his partner one of the glasses.
“We don’t even get to get off the plane?”
He sits down next to her with his own glass. “Nope. They’re refueling and finding us another pilot and—” he makes a jet flying sound and clinks his glass with hers. “Go back home.”
They both take a drink and Bones glances back at Eli. “What about his parents?”
“They’re going to fly back on their own dime. Eli is in federal custody now.”
Bones frowns sadly and Booth notices. “You want to get off the plane. To see those old Chinese bones.” She just looks at him. Clearly she does. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault,” she answers.
“Yeah it is. Cuz I’m the one who dragged you out of pure science and pulled you into murder solving.”
“That’s not how I remember it,” she says leaning towards him.
He leans towards her. “Really?”
“Yes. Well, as I recall, I had to force you to take me into the field.”
Booth grins. “Really…”
“Yes,” Bones argues. “You didn’t want to, remember?” She can’t help but smile. “This is all my fault.”
Booth’s grin broadens, and Eli sighs, leaning into the aisle. “Hey, are you two gonna make out?”
“Hey, quiet,” Booth says. “You lost your right to talk.”
Bones turns back to her partner, whispering, “Why do people always think we’re gonna make out?”
“I say we let him sit back there the entire trip, by himself.”
“He did kill someone,” Bones agrees. “And he ruined my day, plus you know he’s gonna try and drink all the champagne.”
“We’re gonna need some for later,” Booth agrees. He lifts his glass. “To us.”
They clink glasses, take a sip, and then begin leaning their seats back. Bones’s goes back easily, but Booth’s gets caught.
“Wait, huh, why does yours go all the way back and mine doesn’t go all the way back?”
“Ah, that’s just how mine is,” she answers easily, adjusting her shirt and getting comfortable in her reclined chair.
“But this is first class, it’s supposed—They’re supposed to go all the way back.”
“Maybe it’s because you’re supposed to be in coach.”
*fade to black*
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