Bones: The Princess and the Pear
March 31st 2009 23:46
“Low the cave for which the Princess doth dwell.” Three kids, one dressed as a wizard, one an elf, the other a warrior, all enter a sewer tunnel. The wizard, Trevor, is totally into their fantasy role-playing, but his warrior friend is more concerned about the bad smell and the fact that the others might find the treasure before they do. He wants Trevor to call his mom to come pick them up. “This is getting old, right Ezra?”
Suddenly Ezra screams, rushing out the back of the tunnel.
“A rat? Come on.”
“Wait for me!” The warrior runs out too.
Trevor glances down at the dead body and sighs. “Look, I’m sorry about this, we don’t usually break character. If you have to dock points, I completely understand.”
When the body doesn’t answer, Trevor leans forward, using the light of his cell phone to get a closer look. “Eww, what the—” A rat scurries out from inside the body and Trevor suddenly realizes this isn’t part of the game.
“Aaaaaahhhhh!” He runs out too.
~*~*~
*knock knock* “Booth? Open up.”
Booth appears, half dressed and favoring his back as he walks slowly towards the door. “Alright, alright, I’m coming, just keep it down.”
“What’s taking so long?” Bones asks from outside the door, and Booth winces as she knocks again.
Booth opens the door. “Hi.”
She takes one look at her partner’s stiffness and asks him what’s wrong. He insists it’s nothing and asks if she wants some coffee. Bones closes the door and asks, “Did you hurt your back again?”
“No.” He turns his whole body to look at her. “It’s that obvious, huh?”
“Your gate suggests you’ve restrained your anterior longitudinal ligament.”
“Yeah, well I blame the couch, alright?” Booth asks, hobbling around. “I fell asleep last night watching the game.” He turns to see her still studying him with the careful eye of a doctor. “Look, I figured you fixed my back last time, I thought maybe you could fix it again.” He turns back around, offering his back, “So use your little magic knuckles, hit it up, and we’re good to go.”
She doesn’t move. “Booth, if this has become a recurring problem, you should see a specialist.”
“Right I get it, all disclaimers apply, here we go, back—chop chop! We got a case!” He waits for her to do her magic, but again she doesn’t move.
“No.”
“What do you mean no?” Booth turns around, confused. “Last time I had this you were beggin’ to help me.”
“I probably shouldn’t have touched you the last time. You need a medical doctor,” she insists.
“I’m not asking you to perform surgery, just do what you did last time and fix it with your magic knuckles.” When she still hesitates, he adds, “Look, there’s no one I trust more to get my back and crack it then you.” He grins.
Bones can’t fight help but smile. “Wow.”
“You want more?” Booth asks, still grinning.
“No, that was effective, turn around.”
Yes! Booth turns around and Bones puts her arms under his, settling her hands on the side of his neck.
“Okay, this is gonna be great,” Booth says as she begins moving him around. “And believe me, I am not going to forget—” *crack pop crack!* Booth is frozen in pain as he squeaks, “This.” Ouch!
~*~*~
As Bones walks into the Lab, she meets up with Angela, who asks how Booth’s doing. Bones tells her that the doctor said he had a herniated disk in his lumbar region. They’ll know which vertebrae when the x-rays come back.
“So you didn’t actually paralyze him?” Angela asks with a laugh as Cam joins them on the walk to the platform.
“No,” Bones answers. “The Vicodin seems to be working. He claims it makes the furniture feel friendly. But he’ll be on bed rest for the remainder of the week.”
“Are you okay?” Cam asks, and of course, she is.
“I wasn’t the one who was injured,” Bones answers, then adds, “Admittedly, I shouldn’t have let Booth talk me into adjusting him.” They round the corner and find Agent Perotta in the lab. “Agent Perotta.”
“Dr. Brennan, nice to see you. I was honored you requested me as a substitute for Agent Booth.”
“The variables involved in breaking in a new person outweigh the benefit of possibly finding a better investigator,” Bones answers, rational as always.
“Ah let’s not get gushy about it.”
Cam tells Bones that she and Agent Perotta have already looked at the dump site, and Cam cleared the body to be brought back to the lab. No ID yet. Bones looks at Perotta, unimpressed. “Booth usually waits for me to conduct my own examination of the scene.”
“Do you want to go back there?” Perotta asks.
“No. I’ll examine the remains here, thank you,” Bones answers, completely missing the sarcasm.
She walks onto the platform, welcoming back Colin Fisher. His preliminary findings are that the victim is female, 25029 year old, and her skull has been severely damaged, especially around the mandible. “It’s like her face was hit by a wrecking ball.”
“This damage is going to make facial reconstruction very difficult.”
Fisher agrees.
Bones grabs her bag and hands the flesh off to Cam.
“Does that mean we’re officially investigating a murder?” Perotta asks, and Bones ignores her and keeps walking.
“She’s just upset that she put Booth in the hospital,” Angela offers.
Perotta: Well I understand that, but I still need someone to officially say murder.
Cam: Murder.
“Thank you.”
They walk onto the platform.
“So, what do we make of the victim’s clothing?” Perotta asks, and Angela answers, “Huh, it’s like a costume out of Lord of the Rings. The porno version.”
Cam laughs and nods to Fisher. “Fisher, you’re into this stuff.”
“Porn?”
“Fantasy, sci-fi, geek stuff.”
“Superficial judgment,” he mutters as Cam begins examining the victim’s feet, which both show heavy blistering. “No calluses.” She points to the very tall boots. “My guess is she was standing in those princess boots for hours.”
Cam points to the skin on one hand that is less desiccated than the skin around it. She’s not sure what it means. Agent Perotta steps up with her ALS pointer. “May I?” Running the blue light over the victim’s hand, she reveals a blacklight-sensitive stamp. “Hello…”
~*~*~
In Angela’s office, she shows Bones the UV stamp, explaining that “they’re designed to withstand evaporation.” She hasn’t found any match to a bar or club yet.
“Agent Perotta discovered this?” Bones asks, surprised.
“Yes,” Angela prompts. “You should be nicer to her.”
“Wha—I like working with Booth, I’m nice to him.”
Suddenly Fisher barges in, confessing, “Okay, I admit, I’m a geek.”
“You’re Greek?”
“No, geek, sweetie,” Angela answers with a laugh.
“I love it all,” Fisher continues. “Star Trek, Star Wars, Buffy, Zena, Akira…I even watch Fringe,” he admits sadly. He pulls out a picture. “My girlfriend, Jill, dumped me because of it. Which was very depressing.”
He rips up her picture as Angela asks, “Fisher, what doesn’t depress you?”
“Answers.”
~*~*~
“Fascinating,” Bones comments, watching all the ImagiCon people in costumes walk around. “It’s somewhat between the disenfranchised and the commercial franchises. I’m at a loss for an anthropological analog.”
“So you really did a number on Booth’s lower back, huh?” Agent Perotta asks as they continue to look around.
“Well he had a mechanical problem, which didn’t show up on his x-rays. My adjustment aggravated it.”
“So it was an accident…”
“Yes, why did Booth tell you something different?”
“What? No, no, in fact aggravated was uh, exactly the word he used.” Agent Perotta spots the Grimoire 3.0 booth and they head over to where a fans are waiting to take their picture with Shiny Kopinsky. A random boy walks up and puts his arm around Bones and Agent Perotta, and his friend snaps a picture of them before either woman realizes what’s happening. Bones is amused. Perotta introduces herself and Bones to Shiny, and shows her a picture of the missing girl. Yep, “Shiny” recognizes the victim as Kendra Kim, her fellow “booth babe.”
“You can call me Shiny.”
“Why?”
“Because that’s my name? Shiny Kopinsky.”
“Shiny, you didn’t find it strange at all that Kendra didn’t show up for work?” Perotta asks.
Shiny shakes her head. “I just figured the Grimoire people fired her for her attitude.” Bones asks her what “Grimoire people” are and Shiny immediately goes into official mode, “Grimoire 3.0 is the online encyclopedia fantastica for the Mothbreather crowd.”
“Your job is to sexualize software?” Bones asks, and Agent Perotta quickly adds, “You mentioned Kendra had an attitude?”
Shiny nods. Oh yeah. “Kendra thought she WAS a princess. She kept bragging about the fact that this was her last Trade Show and she sitting on some gold mine and was gonna cash in big.”
“What was the gold mine?”
“She wouldn’t say. One day I followed her on a lunch break, I figured I’d catch her talking to some game developer. I mean those guys are loaded and some of them even smell normal,” Shiny answers conspiratorially. “But the only person I saw her talking to was some loser at the blacksmith booth.” She points them over to a Kroon The Blacksmith.
Perotta: Are you Kroon, the blacksmith?
Kroon: Who be ye, fair maiden?
Perotta: *holding up badge* I be a Special Agent. In search of justice and truth.
Kroon: Yeah thou art. How can I assist thee?
Perotta: By knocking off the Medieval stuff and answering some questions.
Bones: That would make me more comfortable.
They interview Peter Kroon, who insists that all his weapons are legal, and that he knew the missing girl only by her first name (which he gets wrong), and the fact that, “She’s the girl with Excalibur.”
Bones’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise. “You mean the sword from the King Arthur Mythos?”
Yes! Except that in this case, it’s a prop from a movie. But not just any prop, the original one. “Is she in trouble?” Kroon asks, and Bones simply answers, “No, she’s dead.”
A random kid interrupts to see if Kroon sells something, which he doesn’t, and Agent Perotta asks why Kroon asks if Kendra was in trouble.
“Uh, she stopped by and asked me how much I’d give her for it, Excalibur,” he answers, still a little shell-shocked. “I take a look and go, ‘whoa, that ain’t no ordinary cutlery’. I have to wonder if it’s hot. You know, stolen.”
“Did it have significant value?” Bones asks, and Kroon tells them that the sword was worth thousands, “tens of thousands”. Perotta thinks that’s a pretty tempting reason for him to kill Kendra, but Kroon insists that he sent her over to list it at an upcoming ImagiCon auction.
“Why was this piece of cutlery worth so much?” Bones asks, still confused.
Kroon looks at her like she’s crazy, explaining it was the ACTUAL PROP used “in the first fantasy film ever made. The Excalibur from this film is the Holy Grail of fantasy memorabilia.” He pulls out a poster from the movie. “Beautiful…”
Agent Perotta makes a noncommittal noise and asks, “And you have no idea where Kendra Kim got it?”
“She said she got it from her family.”
“And you don’t believe her?”
“That sword hasn’t been seen in 20 years,” Kroon answers, putting the poster away. “What I thought was that she got it from someone else here.”
“Stole it,” Bones reiterates.
“The girl was hot,” Kroon answers. “That goes a long way in a place like this.”
~*~*~
Back at the lab, Fisher tells Cam that the trauma was limited to the skull. “Once I clean the skeleton and get a better look at the mandibular damage, I’ll know more,” he says, leaning down to look at the remains and adding, “Or get fired for incompetence.”
Cam tells him she’s done with the soft tissue so he can remove the flesh now. Hodgins comes in with evidence that the victim died about 72 hours ago. He also found Virginia nailwort under her fingernails, which wasn’t native to the dump site.
Fisher suddenly lets out a sigh and Hodgins sarcastically asks, “What’s with the long face there, sunshine?”
“Mr. Fisher just broke up with his girlfriend and he’s feeling a little down,” Cam answers, and Fisher just sighs heavily again.
“My girlfriend and I broke up,” Hodgins tells Fisher. “And I have to see her at work every day.”
“Well obviously it hasn’t blackened your soul like it has mine,” Fisher answers.
“There was some light charring.”
“I’m dead inside.”
“Okay…you win. Happy?”
“Not that I can ever remember.”
Hodgins and Cam exchange a ‘wow’ glance, and Hodgins leaves. Fisher stairs back down at the body again.
~*~*~
In her office, Bones calls Booth at home to check up on his back.
“So what did your doctor say?”
Lying on his couch with his phone to his ear, Booth reports, “Something about a possible…herniation hurt on my disks L3…L4…nothing, you know, a little rest and stretching—hey, maybe a good massage would just kick it right out.”
“Well intervertebral disk generation shouldn’t be taken lightly,” Bones answers. *Screen splits so we can see them both on screen* “Are you wearing your lumbar sacral support belt?”
Booth laughs. “The girdle you mean? Yeah it’s nice and tight.” Suddenly his call waiting rings. “Hold on—” He clicks a button. “Booth.”
“Hey, it’s Perotta, how you doing?” Agent Perotta asks while walking through the FBI. “You need anything?”
*split screen with Booth and Perotta*
Booth: No, I am just dandy.
Perotta: Well if you do, um…hey, we found the victim’s father.
*split screen with Bones, Booth, and Perotta all on the phone*
Bones: We did?
Perotta: Who was that?
Booth: Booth.
Perotta: No, no, before it was you.
Bones: Booth, you pressed conference.
Perotta: Dr. Brennan?
Booth: No, it’s me, Booth.
Bones: Booth is on pain killers. Is the victim’s father coming in?
Booth: I wanna be there!
Bones: No you can’t. He can’t.
Perotta: Why?
Booth: Yes, I can. *sits up, wincing in pain* What are you still doin’ on this call?
Bones: Agent Perotta, his back is very bad, he can’t be there. You can’t let him in.
Booth: Whoa, I say I can I am the ranking officer.
Bones: But you are incapacitated by pain killers!
Booth: Bones enough, okay? I’m not incapacipitated, or whatever you said there alright? I—don’t listen to her Perotta, don’t.
Agent Perotta sighs, rolling her eyes.
~*~*~
At the FBI, Agent Perotta questions the victim’s father, Bruce Kim. A laptop computer sits on the table in front of her. She asks him if his daughter lived with him, and he tells her she had her own condo.
“Ask him, when was the last time he saw his daughter?” Booth asks from home via the computer.
Kim frowns. “What was that?”
Perotta turns the computer to face him. “This is, uh, Agent Booth.”
“Hello,” Booth tells Kim, who stares at the computer, still confused.
“He’s unable to be with us in person.”
Kim tells them that he didn’t see much of his daughter. “Despite the fact that I put a roof over her head.” He admits that the checks she was writing him went to pay the mortgage off on the condo, which was also in his name.
“That’s kind of a weird arrangement now, isn’t it?” Booth asks, and Kim stares at the computer, answering, “So’s this.”
“Well considering my situation, and my back—”
Perotta shoots the computer a warning look.
“Continue,” Booth answers.
Kim tells them that he told his daughter that after she paid her debt to him, she could spend it on whatever she wanted.
“Tough love,” Perotta answers.
“Did you give her a sword?” Booth asks.
“A sword?”
“It’s a knife, but it’s only huge,” Booth answers.
Perotta rolls her eyes as Kim answers, “No.”
“Your daughter mention she might have something of value?” Booth asks, and once again it’s a no. “Probably because you’d take it away from her.”
“Okay,” Perotta interrupts, grabbing the computer. “Listen—”
“Don’t shut me off!” Booth tries, but it’s too late, she’s shutting the computer.
Turning back to Kim, she tells him she’d like to take a look at Kendra’s condo. He nods.
~*~*~
Bones and Perotta visit Kendra’s condo and find the place completely trashed.
“Looks like someone really wanted that sword,” Bones says, looking around at the strewn out clothes, toppled lamp, and unscrewed vent. Perotta nods in agreement.
~*~*~
With the FBI team there combing for clues, Perotta speaks into a recorder, “Precise slashing of the couch and removal of ventilation screens suggests perp was frustrated in the search.” Someone holds up the digital answering machine behind the bed. It’s been wiped. She tells him to send it over to computer forensics.
“I found some running shoes in the closet,” Hodgins calls out. “Soles contain insects, soil, and blood.”
“You want our lab to analyze it or yours?”
“Yeah, I’d like to see you try to get these away from me now.” At Perotta’s expression, he quickly adds, “Figuratively speaking of course.”
“Anything else, Dr. Hodgins?”
“In some ways? You’re just like Booth,” Hodgins answers, walking away. “I mean that as a compliment.”
Perotta heads in the other direction, answering, “I don’t think you do.”
~*~*~
Back at the lab, Bones and Fisher have discovered from the victim’s jaw that "The force radiated symmetrically from the center of her mouth."
“Her face exploded,” Fisher agrees.
“Certainly nothing I’ve ever seen before,” she tells him. “Very good Mr. Fisher.”
“Really?” He glances at the body, unconvinced. “It just seems like the truth is further away than it was before. And like, laughing at us.”
“The process of elimination is a key step in discovering the truth,” she answers. “I’ve seen many unusual murder weapons, so the fact that I don’t recognize this one? Rules out all the others.”
For the first time, Fisher brightens up. “Oh…” He smiles. “My kind of silver lining.” As fast as it came, the moment is gone as he adds, “It’s depressing.”
Bones leaves.
~*~*~
Hodgins joins Cam to tell her that the blood he found on the victim’s running shoes was “not human. I think our princess kissed a toad.” He grabs the remote and brings up a picture of an American toad.
“So she stepped on a frog?”
“A toad,” Hodgins clarifies. Thanks to the toad, he’s found an area near the Potomac where the toad lives and has the same soil they found under the victim’s fingernails.
Studying the picture, Cam says, “She went for a run, stepped on a frog, and buried something.”
“A toad, and yeah that’s the picture forming in my mind too.”
~*~*~
At the FBI, Perotta plays the message recovered from Kendra’s answering machine for Sweets: "I don't know who you think you're fooling, little princess, but you're playing with a woman who gets what she wants. You've got three days. I want that sword."
“You want me to do a profile from a voice on an answering machine?” Sweets asks skeptically.
“Give it a shot, you’re a smarty pants.”
“Okay, fine. ‘You’re playing with a woman’ suggests that the caller regards the victim as a child in comparison.”
“Okay, so what, an old woman?”
“No, no, experientially,” Sweets answers. “Probably in terms of sexual experience. So you’re looking for someone fairy promiscuous. I think that she’s already tried to take the sword from a man, and now is truly annoyed that she has to deal with a girl.”
“The auctioneer is a man, and he evaluated the sword before Kendra panicked and buried it,” Perotta answers, impressed.
Sweets grins.
~*~*~
At the ImagiCon Auction hall, Perotta and Sweets follow the auctioneer Carl Derf around as he assures them that his auction is fair. “We’ve been running this auction for 15 years.”
“Please answer the question, Mt. Dourf,” Perotta interrupts.
“Derf,” he corrects as they walk through the men setting the chairs up for the auction. “Yes, I certified and registered the item. I even gave the consigner the option to store it in our secure room. She declined.”
Perotta asks about the detailed contact information his clients give and wonders if sometimes he gives that information to “certain parties interested in a little illegal pre-bidding”.
“What?” Mr. Derf asks confused, and Sweets studies him as he answers, “No, no, look, I told you before—”
“Your pupils are constricting,” Sweets interrupts. “Suggesting an increase in adrenaline.”
“What?”
“And the change in voice pitch? Indicates increasing pressure in the neck via the laryngeal prominence.”
“Wha--What’re you saying?”
“You’re lying to us,” Sweets answers. “Kinesiology is a clear indicator of dissembling Mr. Dourf.”
“Derf. But—look—”
“Do you recognize this voice?” Perotta interrupts, then plays the recording they found on Kendra’s answering machine for him.
From his reaction, he clearly does. Sweets asks him if that woman contacted him about the sword, and Mr. Derf doesn’t deny it. “Her name is Valerie Daniels, she’s a medieval weapons collector.”
“And you provided her with Kendra Kim’s address and phone number…” Perotta answers.
“Every auction does private free bids. And no one ever gets—”
“Hurt?” she interrupts.
Perotta and Sweets head out.
“Wait!” Derf calls after them. “What about Excalibur? Did you find it? Is it still goin’ up for auction?”
“Booth is right,” Perotta tells Sweets, ignoring Derf. “You’re like a portable polygraph.”
“He didn’t mean that in a good way though, did he?”
~*~*~
Later on, Sweets and Perotta interrogate Valerie Daniels.
Sweets flips through Valerie’s book of weapons she’s collected, and notes, “This is quite a collection of medieval fantasy weapons Miss Daniels.”
“My parents call it a waste of my trust. It’s praise enough for me.”
“That’s quite an unusual hobby for a young woman,” Perotta says, flipping the page of the book.
“I like sharp edges. I like…sharp against soft,” Valerie answers, eyeing Sweets. “What do you like, Dr. Sweets?”
“Wha—”
“Can you account for your whereabouts Wednesday night?” Perotta interrupts.
“Yeah,” Valerie answers smugly. “I was somewhere not killing Kendra Kim. That’s what you wanted to know, right?”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“I was at the Immortal Comics after party. You can ask Dean Novick, the publisher.” She glances at Sweets. “We slept together. The sex was vanilla. At least I got an alibi out of it, right?”
“You feel need to control, don’t you Miss Daniels?” Sweets asks, and she answers, “I’d like to control you, if you’re up for it.”
“Oh I can assure you I’m not. And your attempt to regain self-esteem through sexual intimidation will not repair the dysfunctional relationship you had with your father,” Sweets answers easily. “Abandonment? Abuse? Indifference.”
“You are far more ripped under those school-boy duds than one would think, aren’t you Dr. Sweets?” she asks, still trying to fluster him. It doesn’t work.
Sweets just smiles. “Yes. But right now, I’m more interested to hear why you trashed Kendra’s condo after you didn’t kill her.”
“Her condo was trashed? Hmmm.”
“They were looking for Excalibur,” Perotta answers. “That’s what you wanted, right?”
“I travel the world tracking down rare and beautiful weapons . I do research, I develop contacts. I put in serious work,” Valerie answers. “And here comes this booth babe with this famous sword thought to be lost for decades?” She shakes her head. “She didn’t deserve it.”
“But you deserved it.”
“I asked her where did she get it. She said somebody dressed as the Black Knight just gave it to her the first day of the ImagiCon. Just walked up and presented it to her as a gift. You expect me to believe that?” Perotta looks at Sweets, and Valerie adds, “I didn’t kill the girl. I just wanted the sword.”
~*~*~
On the roadside near the Potomac, Angela and Hodgins are searching the grass off the pathway.
“Thanks for coming along,” Hodgins calls up to her.
“Yeah, any chance to get some fresh air.”
“Lone guy with a metal detector in the bushes? Looks kinda creepy.”
“It is,” Angela answers, amused. “And I know you—“ She jumps back. “—Oh boy! Frog!”
“Toad,” Hodgins corrects, joining her as the toad jumps away. He notices that there’s also Virginia nailwort around them.
“We’re close to where she buried the sword.”
“Hold on a second…” Hodgins runs his metal detector over the ground, listening to his headphones. Suddenly he pulls them off and drops his metal detector. “I’ve got frequency response.”
Angela comes over to help him dig. They find the sword buried shallowly in the dirt.
“Whoa,” Hodgins says, pulling it up. “Excalibur.” He holds it up. “I am the once and future king!”
Angela laughs. “Way to not be creepy.”
~*~*~
Back at the lab, Hodgins makes his own sound effects as he uses the sword to fight an invisible enemy in slow motion. He freezes in midswing when he spots Bones standing behind him.
“That is not a toy, Dr. Hodgins,” she chastises, and Fisher answers, “It kind of is, it’s a movie prop.”
“Stainless steel blade,” Hodgins says, looking at the sword. “That was new technology for the time. The edge is dull of course.”
“May I see it?” Bones asks, and he hands it over. She holds it out and notes, “It’s badly balanced…and the blade is warped.”
Perotta joins them on the forensics platform, telling them that all the prints on the sword belong to Kendra Kim. She gestures to the sword, asking, “Could this be the murder weapon?”
“She wasn’t stabbed or slashed,” Fisher answers, one earbud still in his ear as the other hangs down by his hand. “The damage to her jaw was unique, it wasn’t from being struck with a sword.”
Sweets swipes his card and joins them too. “Is that the sword?” He holds up his gloved hands. “Can I?” Grinning like a little kid, Sweets takes the sword from Bones and dramatically says, “An elegant weapon from a more civilized age.”
“Actually the age in which swords were the primary infantry weapon was some of the most barbaric in history,” Bones answers, completely missing the quote.
“It’s a line from Star Wars,” Perotta answers, trying not to laugh.
Sword still in hand, Sweets answers, “Obi-Wan Kenobi.”
“What language is that supposed to be?” Bones asks, confused.
Agent Perotta just looks at her, and Hodgins asks, “Why is he so excited?”
“Finding this sword has given us a unique advantage in this case,” Sweets answers, laying the sword back on the table. Fisher puts his earphones back in his ear as Sweets explains, “We now have what tha killer wants most. It only makes since that the killer’s gonna come after it again.”
“Dr. Sweets wants to lay a trap,” Perotta explains, sitting down at a table with Sweets, who removes his gloves, and answers, “You said that the auctioneer’s no longer a suspect, correct?”
“So we lean on him to fake the auction?”
“We can’t auction off evidence,” Bones answers, and Sweets frowns.
“I never thought of that.”
“We could insert an undercover asset,” Hodgins answers, getting an idea. “Who outbids the item no matter how high the price goes.”
Ah-ha! Sweets points at him. Great idea.
“The auction is tomorrow,” Perotta says, shaking her head. “I don’t have time to set up that kind of operation.”
Sweets raises his hand. “I’ll do it. You and Dr. Brennan have already been seen walking through the ImagiCon asking questions, right? Whereas, I am an unknown quantity. An enigma. Who is this man bidding so aggressively for Excalibur?” Hodgins and Bones exchange an amused look as Sweets adds, “I’m convinced that if our killer is there, this will provoke him to reveal himself.”
Perotta doesn’t look convinced, so Sweet finishes, “I play the mystery bidder, you observe the unsuspecting suspects via a video feed in a separate room—”
“Who’s gonna run the camera?” Perotta asks, and Sweets sighs.
“We need someone who blends in. Someone who looks like they belong there.”
“I drug your ghost across the country,” Fisher suddenly starts singing to himself, having missed the entire conversation as he worked at the computer listening to his music. “Plotted out my death in every city, memories would whisper, she was where—” Suddenly he notices everyone is looking at him and pulls out his earbuds. “What’s wrong now?”
Everybody turns to Sweets. Yep, looks like we got our cameraman.
~*~*~
At the Auction Hall, Fisher sits in the audience with the camera as Bones and Perotta watch on the computer in another room.
“Is there a reason you wanted me here, Agent Perotta?” Bones asks.
“I-I thought you wanted to be involved in the investigation,” she answers, then tells Fisher, “Ah, okay, pan around.” He does. They notice both Kroon and Valerie Daniels in the bidding audience. “Let’s hope she doesn’t recognize Sweets.”
Suddenly Bones notices, “There’s the Black Knight. Valerie Daniel’s said that a black knight gave Kendra the sword.”
“Alright,” Perotta says, looking at the video feed. “Stay on this one Fisher.”
The auction continues with the next item, and Sweets is in the audience, dressed as a space commander.
“Bidding starts at $,10,000,” Carl Derf calls out, and an elvin warrior raises his bidding paddle. The bidding continues as they all watch until it’s sold. The sword is next. Perotta tells Fisher to find Sweets, and he swings the camera around until he finds Sweet’s red shirt.
“Try to keep that giant fuzzy thing between you and Valerie Daniels,” Perotta tells him.
“She won’t recognize me,” Sweets assure, and Bones asks, “Where did he get that disguise on such short notice?”
“My guess is his closet,” Perotta answers.
The sword comes out and the audience perks up. As Carl Derf announces that bidding will start at $50,000, Valerie Daniels suddenly gets up and sits down next to Fisher.
“This will separate the men from the boys,” Derf jokes, and Valerie is the first to bid. “Or the women!”
Fisher tries to inconspicuously keep the camera posed as Derf asks, “Do I hear 55? 60?”
Sweets raises his paddle.
“60! From the gentlemen from the future with the red lips.”
Sweets wipes at his lips as Valerie bids against him. Suddenly a man in a suit holds up his paddle and announces, “150.” Everyone is shocked.
“Fisher, let me take a look at this guy,” Perotta says into her mic as she and Bones squint at the computer screen.
Fisher goes pans the camera around to the man as Derf announces, “$150,000, going once…going twice…” Sweets raises his paddle. Valerie raises hers. The mystery bidder bids $200,000. The audience is shocked.
Valerie: Who is that guy?
Bones: Who is that guy?
“$300,000!” Sweets calls out, raising his paddle, and Derf looks to the man in the suit. “Sir?” The mystery bidder holds up four fingers. “$400,000!”
A member of the audience faints.
Bones starts muttering about when the Praetorian Guard took over Rome and auctioned off the entire Empire, admitting, “I don’t know why I’m nervous, but I am."
“Sweets,” Perotta reminds urgently. “It’s fake money! Do it!” Even so, Sweets is still sweating bullets. “Do it!”
“Five-hundred!” he finally shouts out and even the girl holding the sword for display is shocked. Derf looks to the man in the suit and Valerie. “A half a million dollars…Sir? Ma’am?”
“500,000 going once…going twice…SOLD! To the skinny captain man dressed as a—congratulations, sir.”
Bones and Perotta both jump in excitement, catching themselves just before they high-five each other. Everyone around Sweets congratulates Sweets, and Valerie turns to look at Fisher.
“How you doin’?” he asks, and she smirks. “I’m makin’ a documentary.”
The man in the suit gets up and Perotta pulls out her ear piece. “Well I am going to go talk to James Bond.”
She catches up to him just outside the Auction Hall. Holding up her badge, she tells him, “Nice suit. You got a minute?”
~*~*~
Back in the room where they watched the auction, Perotta glances at the man’s passport. “Badgley Mormont? Is that your real name?”
“Of course it’s my real name,” the Englishman answers. It’s a family name. He asks for his passport back because he has to catch a plane soon. He tells her the reason he was bidding on the sword was because he represents a group known as the “Arthurian Consortium. They house the largest collection of materials relating to Camelot. They wanted the sword.”
Suddenly Derf comes out, a big grin on his face. “That was actually pretty wild.” He laughs. “But I want to assure you no one realized the auction was bogus.”
Perotta is trying to get him to stop talking, but it’s too late. Badgley angrily asks, “The auction was fixed?! I’m going to sue you, and I’m going to sue you!” he finishes, pointing at both of them.
Perotta glances at Derf, who just shrugs. Whoops, sorry!
~*~*~
~*~*~
A man dressed as the Black Night walks up to the car and smashes his armored hand through the back window. Sweets and Bones are both out in the front seat. The noise wakes up Bones, who glances at Sweets, who’s still out, and jumps out of the car.
“Hey! Stop!” She runs after the knight, who turns and starts trying to get her with the sword. Bones fights him off, knocking away his advances, and eventually gets some punches in there herself. Sweets wakes up just in time to see Bones catch the sword under her arm and swing it around to begin hitting the black knight. After a head shot that knocks him down, the knight runs off back up to his waiting car.
“Sweets, are you alright?” Bones runs back to the car to look in the window.
“Mad props,” Sweets mumbles, head barely off the collapsed airbag.
“Thank…you okay?”
Sweets collapses on the steering wheel, setting off the horn in a long beeeeeeeeeeeeeeep…
~*~*~
After hearing about Bones’s car accident, Booth calls. “I’m comin’ in, alright?” he tells her as he hobbles painfully around his apartment. “You could have been killed!”
“No, you shouldn’t move Booth. With a herniated disk, the splintered cartilage could irritate the nerves.”
“I’m fine.”
“So the pain is gone?”
Silently crying out in pain as he sits, down, Booth answers, “Don’t feel a thing!” Getting down on his hands and knees, he adds, “I might not be moving as fast but heeey—“ he tries not to let on his pain “—I haven’t lost my edge!” Crawling around his coffee table, Booth asks, “So why wasn’t Perotta with you?”
Bones glances up at the other woman standing on the other side of the room and answers, “I was with Sweets.”
“That’s like being protected by a smurf,” Booth answers, then says, “The guy who was in charge? I don’t even know his name, but he was blue, and a small guy…”
“Booth, have you taken more vicodin?”
“Huh?”
“Look, Booth, I’m fine. Sweets is fine, a little shaken up, but really we’re both fine. Please, don’t come in.”
“If you think so—” Booth tries to stand up, his eyes widen in pain, and he sinks back to his knees. “I’m ready!”
“That’s amazing in your condition.”
“You know me…”
“I really think you should just take your vicodin and just rest.”
“Right, okay.” Booth pops a few pills in his mouth and mumbles, “I wanna talk to Perotta.”
“Alright.” Bones holds up the phone. “He wants to talk to you.”
“How are you, Agent Booth?”
Clinging to the edge of his coffee table, Booth answers, “The only reason that I am not coming in right now is because Bones told me not to. But she’s your responsibility, okay? Nothing can happen to her, okay?” Leaning back on his arms against the floor and starting to feel the effects of the vicodin, he adds, “If anything happens to her…you know, that silky black hair…oh that soft skin…”
“I will not let her out of my sight, you have my word,” Perotta quickly interrupts. “Now, uh, we should really get back to the case, Agent Booth.”
Now lying flat on the floor, Booth half-heartedly grabs a bowling pin and tries to use it as a pillow. “Am I stopping you?” he slurs.
Perotta hangs up. Booth grabs his remote and happily clicks on cartoons. He laughs.
~*~*~
Perotta tells Bones that she’s “going to go try and round up as many black knights as she can at a ImagiCon. In the mean time, please don’t go out into the field without me.”
“I don’t need a sitter,” Bones insists. “Booth gets needlessly protective sometimes, I have no idea why.”
Perotta stares at her a moment, shaking her head. “You really don’t, do you?”
“No.”
“Just call me.” With that, Perotta leaves.
~*~*~
Meanwhile, Hodgins analyzes the paint chips left on Sweet’s car, and Angela is worried about Sweets and Bones. “You know, they could have been killed, Hodgins. Sweets is way too young for this, he still has to show his ID to drink.”
“Well they weren’t,” Hodgins gently tries to remind her.
“And Brennan,” Angela goes on. “She shouldn’t be putting herself in danger like this.
“Angela, she cares too much to keep it all in the lab and you’re never gonna change her,” Hodgins answers, typing at his computer.
“But why can’t she just get her rocks off through sex?” Angela asks. “Like a normal person, right?”
“I agree. And, in the spirit of friendship,” he adds, turning to look at her. “If you ever, uh…”
The computer beeps and Angela smirks. “Saved by the beep, huh?”
Hodgins looks at the computer results. “The paint is from an early 90s Ford Explorer. Now all Perotta has to do is find an evil black knight that owns one.”
~*~*~
Cam is looking over the sword, and notes that there’s some blood on it. “So you landed some hits on the errant knight, he’s injured.” Bones asks if she can pull DNA from it, and Cam reminds her that it’ll only do them good if they have something to compare it to.
Bones notices that there are some fresh nicks and scratches on the blade. “Only metal would damage the blade like this.”
“Was he wearing armor?”
“No, his movement wasn’t constricted at all.”
“He jangled,” Sweets suddenly says, joining them.
“Sweets, how are you feeling?” Cam asks.
“Appreciative of the airbag,” he answers, pointing to the wound on his head. “Oh, the doctor says I’m find, thanks.”
“He jangled…” Bones mutters, and Cam asks if he could have had a lot of change in his pocket.
“I wasn’t particularly observant, because during the attack I secreted copious quantities of adrenaline.”
Both Cam and Sweets try very hard not to laugh.
“An attack is an acceptable excuse, Dr. Brennan,” Cam answers, stumbling over her laughter. “I’ll have Hodgins examine the sword and see what he can find.” Still grinning, Cam leaves.
“Uh, hey,” Sweets says as Bones starts to leave too. “I have to thank you Dr. Brennan. For saving my life. I owe you a great deal.”
“I’m sure you would have done the same for me Dr. Sweets, if I had been trapped in the car.” She start to walk by him, but he stops her again.
“Yeah, though I have to say, you were quite impressive with that sword. Your moves?” He acts them out. “Very Xena-ish.”
“Xena?”
“Xena. She’s a tall warrior princess who’s really…” He sighs. “A fantasy.”
“Okay…thank you, I think.”
Again she tries to leave, and again he follows her, asking, “Oh hey, since we shared this brush with death, Dr. Brennan, I was wondering if I could also call you “Bones” in future moments of shared camaraderie?”
“Don’t,” she nods. “Call me Bones”
“You sure about that, Bones?” Sweets calls after her, grinning as she finally manages to get past him down the stairs.
~*~*~
At the FBI, Perotta has a room full of black knights wandering around checking out each others costumes.
“None of them drive a Ford Explorer, and they all have alibis,” she tells Cam over the phone. “Four can be corroborated by their moms.”
“Any way for you to get blood samples?”
“No. And dressing like a medieval knight isn’t exactly enough to get a warrant to collect DNA.”
Behind her, one of the knights goes over to help his fellow knight with his helmet.
“Maybe you could get the names of a few more black knights from these black knights,” Cam answers.
“Okay,” Perotta says, not to happy with it. “But I gotta tell you, being addressed as ‘my lady’ for two hours makes one a little cranky.”
Cam laughs and clicks off the phone. Perotta hangs up and heads back into the room with the knights.
“My lady,” two of them say, simultaneously bowing as she enters.
~*~*~
Back at the lab, Fisher suddenly rushes in with an old torture device in his hand, announcing, “This is the murder weapon.” Cam stares at the strange device as he adds, “Not the literal murder weapon, I’m not that good, but it certainly falls within the genre or type.”
“What is it?”
“The Pear of Anguish. A mideival torture device. Valerie had it.”
Cam stares at him. “Valerie…”
“Valerie Daniels.”
“One of the suspects in the case, Valerie Daniels?”
“Yeah.”
“How did you get it?”
“Oh, do we really have to get into that?”
“Now we do, yeah,” she answers.
“Our eyes met at the auction, we shared a bleak and profound hopelessness.”
Cam can’t believe it. “You spent the night with the suspect.”
“Yeah,” Fisher answers, missing her tone. “Valerie enjoys quite a collection of torture devices and other archaic implements used for pleasure rather than pain.” He spots a fake skull and asks, “May I?”
“Sure,” Cam answers, at a loss.
"This particular Pear of Anguish was to be inserted in either the vagina or anus. There are larger ones for the mouth.” He sets the skull down and puts the Pear of Anguish in its mouth, demonstrating, “As it is opened, it expands the hard palette and mandible in equal proportions, which would give exactly these injuries.” He gestures to the victim’s x-rays. “Crushing the maxilla and zygomatic, thrusting the bones into the brain, killing the victim.” Cam winches as she watches the Pear of Anguish break apart the skull.
“That is one horrible way to die.”
“I wish the depravity and cruelty of human behavior surprised me,” Fisher answers depressingly.
“Does that extend to disciplinary action?” Cam asks. “Because you are in big trouble my melancholy friend.”
“Of course I am. Who could expect a night of love to last?” He hands over the Pear of Anguish and leaves. Cam drops it to two fingers, looking around for a place to put it.
~*~*~
At the lab, Hodgins tells everyone that he’s done every test he could think of on the sword. Sitting in a corner by himself, Fisher asks, “Can I say something?”
“The only thing I’m willing to hear from you Mr. Fisher, is ‘I hereby tender my resignation’,” Cam answers.
“Practically speaking,” Bones says, looking at the weapon. “This sword wasn’t worth enough to kill for.”
“Anything is worth killing for then everything is work killing for,” Fisher answers depressingly, staring at the floor.
“It’s worth so much because it appeared in the movie,” Hodgins explains.
“That’s conveyed value,” Bones answers. “Intrinsically, it can’t be worth more than a few hundred dollars.”
“You mean if it really was a sword from 100 AD you’d understand killing for it?” Cam asks sarcastically, and Bones just nods. “Yes, I would. I’d very much like to examine a sword like that.”
Hodgins and Cam just shake their head as she asks about the marks on the sword, and Hodgins confirms that it struck something metal.
“Chain mail,” Fisher speaks up even though he’s not supposed to. They all turn to look at him, and he adds, “I’m thinking chain mail…”
“Huh…” Bones glances back at the sword.
“What?”
“The knight who attacked me? Was authentic. He used two attack maneuvers, The Serpent, and The Arrowhead.”
“Could have learned them from movies,” Fisher offers.
“Movies never show combatants holding the sword correctly,” Bones answers. “Which is one hand on the handle and the other on the blade.” Cam and Hodgins lean quickly out of the way as Bones picks up the sword to illustrate. “Our assailant’s form was historically accurate.” They lean back in as she places it back on the table.
“So uh, you believe you were attacked by an actual Arthurian Knight?” Hodgins asks, and Bones frowns.
“No. Time travel is scientifically impossible. But I was attacked by someone trained in archaic Marshal arts, wearing chainmail.” Heading out, Bones says, “Hodgins, we’re going to need to use your metal detector again.”
He nods. “Sure.”
After a moment, Cam nods after Bones. “I think she means that you should go with her.”
“Oh…Yeah, right, hey, field trip!” he leaves.
~*~*~
At the car crash site, Hodgins searches with his metal detector. It starts to beep.
“What’s that?” Bones asks, looking up.
“Part of Sweet’s car. You think he wants it back?”
Bones shrugs. “I’ll ask him.”
Hodgins goes back to searching. “So what am I looking for exactly? Maybe the Black Knight dropped his metal wallet?”
“Uh, no,” Bones answers, completely missing the humor. “Historically, that would have been a leather sack held together with flax thread, it wouldn’t register on your metal detector.”
Hodgins just shakes his head in amusement.
“I hit him hard,” Bones says, looking around. “Perhaps hard enough to dislodge—“ Her eye catches something and she picks it up, showing to Hodgins. “—Some of his chain mail.”
~*~*~
Back at the lab, Hodgins shows them the chain mail.
Cam: Is it real?
Hodgins: If by real you mean does it come from Medieval times, no. No, but it’s a very good replica.
He magnifies the picture, adding that it’s historically accurate, but the smelting methods for the rodiron are modern.
“Can you trace the manufacturer?”
“I had Fisher do it.”
Cam glances from Fisher back to Hodgins, suspiciously. “Are you trying to help someone? Because that’s not in your character.”
“The way I see it, Fisher’s like a deep cover agent. He infiltrate the enemy to uncover secrets, in order to do so, he had to suffer a night of passion with a beautiful, but dangerous, enemy.”
“You have no idea how dangerous,” Fisher adds, and Hodgins tells Cam, “He’s sort of my hero.”
Cam just shakes her head. “Alright, what’ve you got?”
Fisher jumps up. He didn’t have to go far, as there are only three manufacturers working at this level with these materials. He shows her the folder, asking, “Can I please keep my job? If I promise to never ever have sex again with anyone, which by the way suits me temperamentally? I happen to be very self-sufficient.”
Closing her eyes in amusement, Cam answers, “I won’t require that Mr. Fisher, but I do require discretion.”
“Nothing will pass these lips again Dr. Saroyan. Even if a scary hot woman in black leather uses the Pear of Anguish on me.” Hodgins can’t hide his amusement either, and glances at Cam as Fisher adds, “Which, I’m actually afraid she—” He stops at Cam’s look.
Turning to the information in her hand, Cam flips to a page with an article about Peter Kroon. “Kroon the Blacksmith.”
~*~*~
Bones and Perotta interrogate Kroon at the FBI.
“You started out as a serious historian at Yale,” Bones start. “You studied Medieval warfare and Chelserian Literature at Oxford. You’re a published poet.”
“You’re wondering how a man with all my potential ended up selling artifacts to fantasy geeks?”
“No,” Bones answers simply. “I don’t care.”
Perotta tells him that his car matches the one that drove Bones and Sweets off the road, his wound matches the one Bones delivered to her assailant, it was his blood on the sword, and they found fragments of his chain mail.
“We know you did it,” Bones tells him and Perotta adds, “We just don’t know why.”
Bones: Well, we don’t care why.
Perotta: Well, I kinda do, I mean it’s pretty essential to a conviction…
“I know why,” Sweets interrupts from the observation room. He holds up a book. “Read this to him: "What is a man without his love? If love turn his back on thee, it is as a hearth with no fire. 'Tis best to slay the false heart, to waken from the dream that is life, than live dark hearted in a dark world."
Kroon swallows hard and Perotta asks him what that was.
“It’s mine,” he answers. “I wrote that.”
“That’s a confession,” Sweets says, and Bones repeats it to Kroon.
“I loved her,” Kroon admits. “It’s stupid, but…love is stupid, you know?”
“You gave her the sword,” Perotta answers. “You’re most valued possession, and she tried to sell it for rent.”
“You killed her because she wanted to sell a movie prop?” Bones asks.
“You don’t understand. No one understands true love anymore!” Kroon sighs, at a loss.
~*~*~
Bones is at Booth’s apartment inspecting his X-rays.
“So he killed her because he loved her so much?” Booth asks, wincing against his back pain.
“The age of chivalry was irrational,” Bones answers, lowering the X-ray from the light. “Knights, maidens, thank goodness we’ve moved through the Reformation and the Enlightenment to the Age of Reason.” She holds the X-ray back up to the light, pointing. “Do you see what I mean?”
“Not at all,” he answers, then adds, “I gotta tell you, I think they had a pretty good idea with the whole chivalry thing. Open car doors, killed dragons…small hearts…”
“Are you still on vicodin?”
“Yeah, a little.”
“Okay, what I’m trying to show you I that your doctor is wrong. You’ve been misdiagnosed.”
“Give me that, what?” Booth takes the X-ray from her.
“Just a slight misalignment, I’d be happy to fix it for you.”
“Oh no, no, no, last time you did that I almost ended up in a wheelchair.” He hands her back the x-ray, and she asks, “Don’t you trust me?”
“Let’s not make it about trust.”
“It’s a fact,” Bones answers, putting the X-ray back in the envelope and setting it down. “A fact is not what I make of it, it’s just a fact. Are you ready?”
Booth groans as he stands up. “Definitely not ready now, thanks.” Wincing and trying to prepare himself for another back crack, Booth lets Bones position her arms under his again. There’s a knock at the door, and Booth calls, “Argh, it’s open!”
Bones starts maneuvering him around again and *Crack!*
“Oh!” Perotta stops dead in the doorway as she watches Bones crack Booth’s back into place. “Uh, I didn’t—I-I thought you said the door was open.”
Booth and Bones look at her innocently. Booth nods, and Bones answers, “It is open. I’m done. I’m just leaving.”
“Oh no, no, no—“ Perotta laughs, holding up a bag. “I just, uh, brought some chili I made, but uh…you know what? I’ll just leave that, uh, there.” She sets the bag down in the kitchen. “And you can…um…Are you alright?”
Bones still has her hands under his arms and answers, “He’s fine now.”
“I gotta tell you, I’m afraid to move,” Booth answers, and Bones once again insists, “He’s fine.”
Perotta nods, confused, and Bones lets go of Booth. “Please, you stay,” she tells Perotta as she heads for the door.
“Oh no, I really-I really can’t, so you, you stay.”
“Oh I’ve gotta go. I can’t stay.” Bones heads for the door and Perotta awkwardly heads out after her.
“Great, no nobody’s gonna stay?” Booth calls after them both. The door shuts. “Hello?”
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Suddenly Ezra screams, rushing out the back of the tunnel.
“A rat? Come on.”
“Wait for me!” The warrior runs out too.
Trevor glances down at the dead body and sighs. “Look, I’m sorry about this, we don’t usually break character. If you have to dock points, I completely understand.”
When the body doesn’t answer, Trevor leans forward, using the light of his cell phone to get a closer look. “Eww, what the—” A rat scurries out from inside the body and Trevor suddenly realizes this isn’t part of the game.
“Aaaaaahhhhh!” He runs out too.
~*~*~
*knock knock* “Booth? Open up.”
Booth appears, half dressed and favoring his back as he walks slowly towards the door. “Alright, alright, I’m coming, just keep it down.”
“What’s taking so long?” Bones asks from outside the door, and Booth winces as she knocks again.
Booth opens the door. “Hi.”
She takes one look at her partner’s stiffness and asks him what’s wrong. He insists it’s nothing and asks if she wants some coffee. Bones closes the door and asks, “Did you hurt your back again?”
“No.” He turns his whole body to look at her. “It’s that obvious, huh?”
“Your gate suggests you’ve restrained your anterior longitudinal ligament.”
“Yeah, well I blame the couch, alright?” Booth asks, hobbling around. “I fell asleep last night watching the game.” He turns to see her still studying him with the careful eye of a doctor. “Look, I figured you fixed my back last time, I thought maybe you could fix it again.” He turns back around, offering his back, “So use your little magic knuckles, hit it up, and we’re good to go.”
She doesn’t move. “Booth, if this has become a recurring problem, you should see a specialist.”
“Right I get it, all disclaimers apply, here we go, back—chop chop! We got a case!” He waits for her to do her magic, but again she doesn’t move.
“No.”
“What do you mean no?” Booth turns around, confused. “Last time I had this you were beggin’ to help me.”
“I probably shouldn’t have touched you the last time. You need a medical doctor,” she insists.
“I’m not asking you to perform surgery, just do what you did last time and fix it with your magic knuckles.” When she still hesitates, he adds, “Look, there’s no one I trust more to get my back and crack it then you.” He grins.
Bones can’t fight help but smile. “Wow.”
“You want more?” Booth asks, still grinning.
“No, that was effective, turn around.”
Yes! Booth turns around and Bones puts her arms under his, settling her hands on the side of his neck.
“Okay, this is gonna be great,” Booth says as she begins moving him around. “And believe me, I am not going to forget—” *crack pop crack!* Booth is frozen in pain as he squeaks, “This.” Ouch!
~*~*~
As Bones walks into the Lab, she meets up with Angela, who asks how Booth’s doing. Bones tells her that the doctor said he had a herniated disk in his lumbar region. They’ll know which vertebrae when the x-rays come back.
“So you didn’t actually paralyze him?” Angela asks with a laugh as Cam joins them on the walk to the platform.
“No,” Bones answers. “The Vicodin seems to be working. He claims it makes the furniture feel friendly. But he’ll be on bed rest for the remainder of the week.”
“Are you okay?” Cam asks, and of course, she is.
“I wasn’t the one who was injured,” Bones answers, then adds, “Admittedly, I shouldn’t have let Booth talk me into adjusting him.” They round the corner and find Agent Perotta in the lab. “Agent Perotta.”
“Dr. Brennan, nice to see you. I was honored you requested me as a substitute for Agent Booth.”
“The variables involved in breaking in a new person outweigh the benefit of possibly finding a better investigator,” Bones answers, rational as always.
“Ah let’s not get gushy about it.”
Cam tells Bones that she and Agent Perotta have already looked at the dump site, and Cam cleared the body to be brought back to the lab. No ID yet. Bones looks at Perotta, unimpressed. “Booth usually waits for me to conduct my own examination of the scene.”
“Do you want to go back there?” Perotta asks.
“No. I’ll examine the remains here, thank you,” Bones answers, completely missing the sarcasm.
She walks onto the platform, welcoming back Colin Fisher. His preliminary findings are that the victim is female, 25029 year old, and her skull has been severely damaged, especially around the mandible. “It’s like her face was hit by a wrecking ball.”
“This damage is going to make facial reconstruction very difficult.”
Fisher agrees.
Bones grabs her bag and hands the flesh off to Cam.
“Does that mean we’re officially investigating a murder?” Perotta asks, and Bones ignores her and keeps walking.
“She’s just upset that she put Booth in the hospital,” Angela offers.
Perotta: Well I understand that, but I still need someone to officially say murder.
Cam: Murder.
“Thank you.”
They walk onto the platform.
“So, what do we make of the victim’s clothing?” Perotta asks, and Angela answers, “Huh, it’s like a costume out of Lord of the Rings. The porno version.”
Cam laughs and nods to Fisher. “Fisher, you’re into this stuff.”
“Porn?”
“Fantasy, sci-fi, geek stuff.”
“Superficial judgment,” he mutters as Cam begins examining the victim’s feet, which both show heavy blistering. “No calluses.” She points to the very tall boots. “My guess is she was standing in those princess boots for hours.”
Cam points to the skin on one hand that is less desiccated than the skin around it. She’s not sure what it means. Agent Perotta steps up with her ALS pointer. “May I?” Running the blue light over the victim’s hand, she reveals a blacklight-sensitive stamp. “Hello…”
~*~*~
In Angela’s office, she shows Bones the UV stamp, explaining that “they’re designed to withstand evaporation.” She hasn’t found any match to a bar or club yet.
“Agent Perotta discovered this?” Bones asks, surprised.
“Yes,” Angela prompts. “You should be nicer to her.”
“Wha—I like working with Booth, I’m nice to him.”
Suddenly Fisher barges in, confessing, “Okay, I admit, I’m a geek.”
“You’re Greek?”
“No, geek, sweetie,” Angela answers with a laugh.
“I love it all,” Fisher continues. “Star Trek, Star Wars, Buffy, Zena, Akira…I even watch Fringe,” he admits sadly. He pulls out a picture. “My girlfriend, Jill, dumped me because of it. Which was very depressing.”
He rips up her picture as Angela asks, “Fisher, what doesn’t depress you?”
“Answers.”
~*~*~
“Fascinating,” Bones comments, watching all the ImagiCon people in costumes walk around. “It’s somewhat between the disenfranchised and the commercial franchises. I’m at a loss for an anthropological analog.”
“So you really did a number on Booth’s lower back, huh?” Agent Perotta asks as they continue to look around.
“Well he had a mechanical problem, which didn’t show up on his x-rays. My adjustment aggravated it.”
“So it was an accident…”
“Yes, why did Booth tell you something different?”
“What? No, no, in fact aggravated was uh, exactly the word he used.” Agent Perotta spots the Grimoire 3.0 booth and they head over to where a fans are waiting to take their picture with Shiny Kopinsky. A random boy walks up and puts his arm around Bones and Agent Perotta, and his friend snaps a picture of them before either woman realizes what’s happening. Bones is amused. Perotta introduces herself and Bones to Shiny, and shows her a picture of the missing girl. Yep, “Shiny” recognizes the victim as Kendra Kim, her fellow “booth babe.”
“You can call me Shiny.”
“Why?”
“Because that’s my name? Shiny Kopinsky.”
“Shiny, you didn’t find it strange at all that Kendra didn’t show up for work?” Perotta asks.
Shiny shakes her head. “I just figured the Grimoire people fired her for her attitude.” Bones asks her what “Grimoire people” are and Shiny immediately goes into official mode, “Grimoire 3.0 is the online encyclopedia fantastica for the Mothbreather crowd.”
“Your job is to sexualize software?” Bones asks, and Agent Perotta quickly adds, “You mentioned Kendra had an attitude?”
Shiny nods. Oh yeah. “Kendra thought she WAS a princess. She kept bragging about the fact that this was her last Trade Show and she sitting on some gold mine and was gonna cash in big.”
“What was the gold mine?”
“She wouldn’t say. One day I followed her on a lunch break, I figured I’d catch her talking to some game developer. I mean those guys are loaded and some of them even smell normal,” Shiny answers conspiratorially. “But the only person I saw her talking to was some loser at the blacksmith booth.” She points them over to a Kroon The Blacksmith.
Perotta: Are you Kroon, the blacksmith?
Kroon: Who be ye, fair maiden?
Perotta: *holding up badge* I be a Special Agent. In search of justice and truth.
Kroon: Yeah thou art. How can I assist thee?
Perotta: By knocking off the Medieval stuff and answering some questions.
Bones: That would make me more comfortable.
They interview Peter Kroon, who insists that all his weapons are legal, and that he knew the missing girl only by her first name (which he gets wrong), and the fact that, “She’s the girl with Excalibur.”
Bones’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise. “You mean the sword from the King Arthur Mythos?”
Yes! Except that in this case, it’s a prop from a movie. But not just any prop, the original one. “Is she in trouble?” Kroon asks, and Bones simply answers, “No, she’s dead.”
A random kid interrupts to see if Kroon sells something, which he doesn’t, and Agent Perotta asks why Kroon asks if Kendra was in trouble.
“Uh, she stopped by and asked me how much I’d give her for it, Excalibur,” he answers, still a little shell-shocked. “I take a look and go, ‘whoa, that ain’t no ordinary cutlery’. I have to wonder if it’s hot. You know, stolen.”
“Did it have significant value?” Bones asks, and Kroon tells them that the sword was worth thousands, “tens of thousands”. Perotta thinks that’s a pretty tempting reason for him to kill Kendra, but Kroon insists that he sent her over to list it at an upcoming ImagiCon auction.
“Why was this piece of cutlery worth so much?” Bones asks, still confused.
Kroon looks at her like she’s crazy, explaining it was the ACTUAL PROP used “in the first fantasy film ever made. The Excalibur from this film is the Holy Grail of fantasy memorabilia.” He pulls out a poster from the movie. “Beautiful…”
Agent Perotta makes a noncommittal noise and asks, “And you have no idea where Kendra Kim got it?”
“She said she got it from her family.”
“And you don’t believe her?”
“That sword hasn’t been seen in 20 years,” Kroon answers, putting the poster away. “What I thought was that she got it from someone else here.”
“Stole it,” Bones reiterates.
“The girl was hot,” Kroon answers. “That goes a long way in a place like this.”
~*~*~
Back at the lab, Fisher tells Cam that the trauma was limited to the skull. “Once I clean the skeleton and get a better look at the mandibular damage, I’ll know more,” he says, leaning down to look at the remains and adding, “Or get fired for incompetence.”
Cam tells him she’s done with the soft tissue so he can remove the flesh now. Hodgins comes in with evidence that the victim died about 72 hours ago. He also found Virginia nailwort under her fingernails, which wasn’t native to the dump site.
Fisher suddenly lets out a sigh and Hodgins sarcastically asks, “What’s with the long face there, sunshine?”
“Mr. Fisher just broke up with his girlfriend and he’s feeling a little down,” Cam answers, and Fisher just sighs heavily again.
“My girlfriend and I broke up,” Hodgins tells Fisher. “And I have to see her at work every day.”
“Well obviously it hasn’t blackened your soul like it has mine,” Fisher answers.
“There was some light charring.”
“I’m dead inside.”
“Okay…you win. Happy?”
“Not that I can ever remember.”
Hodgins and Cam exchange a ‘wow’ glance, and Hodgins leaves. Fisher stairs back down at the body again.
~*~*~
In her office, Bones calls Booth at home to check up on his back.
“So what did your doctor say?”
Lying on his couch with his phone to his ear, Booth reports, “Something about a possible…herniation hurt on my disks L3…L4…nothing, you know, a little rest and stretching—hey, maybe a good massage would just kick it right out.”
“Well intervertebral disk generation shouldn’t be taken lightly,” Bones answers. *Screen splits so we can see them both on screen* “Are you wearing your lumbar sacral support belt?”
Booth laughs. “The girdle you mean? Yeah it’s nice and tight.” Suddenly his call waiting rings. “Hold on—” He clicks a button. “Booth.”
“Hey, it’s Perotta, how you doing?” Agent Perotta asks while walking through the FBI. “You need anything?”
*split screen with Booth and Perotta*
Booth: No, I am just dandy.
Perotta: Well if you do, um…hey, we found the victim’s father.
*split screen with Bones, Booth, and Perotta all on the phone*
Bones: We did?
Perotta: Who was that?
Booth: Booth.
Perotta: No, no, before it was you.
Bones: Booth, you pressed conference.
Perotta: Dr. Brennan?
Booth: No, it’s me, Booth.
Bones: Booth is on pain killers. Is the victim’s father coming in?
Booth: I wanna be there!
Bones: No you can’t. He can’t.
Perotta: Why?
Booth: Yes, I can. *sits up, wincing in pain* What are you still doin’ on this call?
Bones: Agent Perotta, his back is very bad, he can’t be there. You can’t let him in.
Booth: Whoa, I say I can I am the ranking officer.
Bones: But you are incapacitated by pain killers!
Booth: Bones enough, okay? I’m not incapacipitated, or whatever you said there alright? I—don’t listen to her Perotta, don’t.
Agent Perotta sighs, rolling her eyes.
~*~*~
At the FBI, Agent Perotta questions the victim’s father, Bruce Kim. A laptop computer sits on the table in front of her. She asks him if his daughter lived with him, and he tells her she had her own condo.
“Ask him, when was the last time he saw his daughter?” Booth asks from home via the computer.
Kim frowns. “What was that?”
Perotta turns the computer to face him. “This is, uh, Agent Booth.”
“Hello,” Booth tells Kim, who stares at the computer, still confused.
“He’s unable to be with us in person.”
Kim tells them that he didn’t see much of his daughter. “Despite the fact that I put a roof over her head.” He admits that the checks she was writing him went to pay the mortgage off on the condo, which was also in his name.
“That’s kind of a weird arrangement now, isn’t it?” Booth asks, and Kim stares at the computer, answering, “So’s this.”
“Well considering my situation, and my back—”
Perotta shoots the computer a warning look.
“Continue,” Booth answers.
Kim tells them that he told his daughter that after she paid her debt to him, she could spend it on whatever she wanted.
“Tough love,” Perotta answers.
“Did you give her a sword?” Booth asks.
“A sword?”
“It’s a knife, but it’s only huge,” Booth answers.
Perotta rolls her eyes as Kim answers, “No.”
“Your daughter mention she might have something of value?” Booth asks, and once again it’s a no. “Probably because you’d take it away from her.”
“Okay,” Perotta interrupts, grabbing the computer. “Listen—”
“Don’t shut me off!” Booth tries, but it’s too late, she’s shutting the computer.
Turning back to Kim, she tells him she’d like to take a look at Kendra’s condo. He nods.
~*~*~
Bones and Perotta visit Kendra’s condo and find the place completely trashed.
“Looks like someone really wanted that sword,” Bones says, looking around at the strewn out clothes, toppled lamp, and unscrewed vent. Perotta nods in agreement.
~*~*~
With the FBI team there combing for clues, Perotta speaks into a recorder, “Precise slashing of the couch and removal of ventilation screens suggests perp was frustrated in the search.” Someone holds up the digital answering machine behind the bed. It’s been wiped. She tells him to send it over to computer forensics.
“I found some running shoes in the closet,” Hodgins calls out. “Soles contain insects, soil, and blood.”
“You want our lab to analyze it or yours?”
“Yeah, I’d like to see you try to get these away from me now.” At Perotta’s expression, he quickly adds, “Figuratively speaking of course.”
“Anything else, Dr. Hodgins?”
“In some ways? You’re just like Booth,” Hodgins answers, walking away. “I mean that as a compliment.”
Perotta heads in the other direction, answering, “I don’t think you do.”
~*~*~
Back at the lab, Bones and Fisher have discovered from the victim’s jaw that "The force radiated symmetrically from the center of her mouth."
“Her face exploded,” Fisher agrees.
“Certainly nothing I’ve ever seen before,” she tells him. “Very good Mr. Fisher.”
“Really?” He glances at the body, unconvinced. “It just seems like the truth is further away than it was before. And like, laughing at us.”
“The process of elimination is a key step in discovering the truth,” she answers. “I’ve seen many unusual murder weapons, so the fact that I don’t recognize this one? Rules out all the others.”
For the first time, Fisher brightens up. “Oh…” He smiles. “My kind of silver lining.” As fast as it came, the moment is gone as he adds, “It’s depressing.”
Bones leaves.
~*~*~
Hodgins joins Cam to tell her that the blood he found on the victim’s running shoes was “not human. I think our princess kissed a toad.” He grabs the remote and brings up a picture of an American toad.
“So she stepped on a frog?”
“A toad,” Hodgins clarifies. Thanks to the toad, he’s found an area near the Potomac where the toad lives and has the same soil they found under the victim’s fingernails.
Studying the picture, Cam says, “She went for a run, stepped on a frog, and buried something.”
“A toad, and yeah that’s the picture forming in my mind too.”
~*~*~
At the FBI, Perotta plays the message recovered from Kendra’s answering machine for Sweets: "I don't know who you think you're fooling, little princess, but you're playing with a woman who gets what she wants. You've got three days. I want that sword."
“You want me to do a profile from a voice on an answering machine?” Sweets asks skeptically.
“Give it a shot, you’re a smarty pants.”
“Okay, fine. ‘You’re playing with a woman’ suggests that the caller regards the victim as a child in comparison.”
“Okay, so what, an old woman?”
“No, no, experientially,” Sweets answers. “Probably in terms of sexual experience. So you’re looking for someone fairy promiscuous. I think that she’s already tried to take the sword from a man, and now is truly annoyed that she has to deal with a girl.”
“The auctioneer is a man, and he evaluated the sword before Kendra panicked and buried it,” Perotta answers, impressed.
Sweets grins.
~*~*~
At the ImagiCon Auction hall, Perotta and Sweets follow the auctioneer Carl Derf around as he assures them that his auction is fair. “We’ve been running this auction for 15 years.”
“Please answer the question, Mt. Dourf,” Perotta interrupts.
“Derf,” he corrects as they walk through the men setting the chairs up for the auction. “Yes, I certified and registered the item. I even gave the consigner the option to store it in our secure room. She declined.”
Perotta asks about the detailed contact information his clients give and wonders if sometimes he gives that information to “certain parties interested in a little illegal pre-bidding”.
“What?” Mr. Derf asks confused, and Sweets studies him as he answers, “No, no, look, I told you before—”
“Your pupils are constricting,” Sweets interrupts. “Suggesting an increase in adrenaline.”
“What?”
“And the change in voice pitch? Indicates increasing pressure in the neck via the laryngeal prominence.”
“Wha--What’re you saying?”
“You’re lying to us,” Sweets answers. “Kinesiology is a clear indicator of dissembling Mr. Dourf.”
“Derf. But—look—”
“Do you recognize this voice?” Perotta interrupts, then plays the recording they found on Kendra’s answering machine for him.
From his reaction, he clearly does. Sweets asks him if that woman contacted him about the sword, and Mr. Derf doesn’t deny it. “Her name is Valerie Daniels, she’s a medieval weapons collector.”
“And you provided her with Kendra Kim’s address and phone number…” Perotta answers.
“Every auction does private free bids. And no one ever gets—”
“Hurt?” she interrupts.
Perotta and Sweets head out.
“Wait!” Derf calls after them. “What about Excalibur? Did you find it? Is it still goin’ up for auction?”
“Booth is right,” Perotta tells Sweets, ignoring Derf. “You’re like a portable polygraph.”
“He didn’t mean that in a good way though, did he?”
~*~*~
Later on, Sweets and Perotta interrogate Valerie Daniels.
Sweets flips through Valerie’s book of weapons she’s collected, and notes, “This is quite a collection of medieval fantasy weapons Miss Daniels.”
“My parents call it a waste of my trust. It’s praise enough for me.”
“That’s quite an unusual hobby for a young woman,” Perotta says, flipping the page of the book.
“I like sharp edges. I like…sharp against soft,” Valerie answers, eyeing Sweets. “What do you like, Dr. Sweets?”
“Wha—”
“Can you account for your whereabouts Wednesday night?” Perotta interrupts.
“Yeah,” Valerie answers smugly. “I was somewhere not killing Kendra Kim. That’s what you wanted to know, right?”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“I was at the Immortal Comics after party. You can ask Dean Novick, the publisher.” She glances at Sweets. “We slept together. The sex was vanilla. At least I got an alibi out of it, right?”
“You feel need to control, don’t you Miss Daniels?” Sweets asks, and she answers, “I’d like to control you, if you’re up for it.”
“Oh I can assure you I’m not. And your attempt to regain self-esteem through sexual intimidation will not repair the dysfunctional relationship you had with your father,” Sweets answers easily. “Abandonment? Abuse? Indifference.”
“You are far more ripped under those school-boy duds than one would think, aren’t you Dr. Sweets?” she asks, still trying to fluster him. It doesn’t work.
Sweets just smiles. “Yes. But right now, I’m more interested to hear why you trashed Kendra’s condo after you didn’t kill her.”
“Her condo was trashed? Hmmm.”
“They were looking for Excalibur,” Perotta answers. “That’s what you wanted, right?”
“I travel the world tracking down rare and beautiful weapons . I do research, I develop contacts. I put in serious work,” Valerie answers. “And here comes this booth babe with this famous sword thought to be lost for decades?” She shakes her head. “She didn’t deserve it.”
“But you deserved it.”
“I asked her where did she get it. She said somebody dressed as the Black Knight just gave it to her the first day of the ImagiCon. Just walked up and presented it to her as a gift. You expect me to believe that?” Perotta looks at Sweets, and Valerie adds, “I didn’t kill the girl. I just wanted the sword.”
~*~*~
On the roadside near the Potomac, Angela and Hodgins are searching the grass off the pathway.
“Thanks for coming along,” Hodgins calls up to her.
“Yeah, any chance to get some fresh air.”
“Lone guy with a metal detector in the bushes? Looks kinda creepy.”
“It is,” Angela answers, amused. “And I know you—“ She jumps back. “—Oh boy! Frog!”
“Toad,” Hodgins corrects, joining her as the toad jumps away. He notices that there’s also Virginia nailwort around them.
“We’re close to where she buried the sword.”
“Hold on a second…” Hodgins runs his metal detector over the ground, listening to his headphones. Suddenly he pulls them off and drops his metal detector. “I’ve got frequency response.”
Angela comes over to help him dig. They find the sword buried shallowly in the dirt.
“Whoa,” Hodgins says, pulling it up. “Excalibur.” He holds it up. “I am the once and future king!”
Angela laughs. “Way to not be creepy.”
~*~*~
Back at the lab, Hodgins makes his own sound effects as he uses the sword to fight an invisible enemy in slow motion. He freezes in midswing when he spots Bones standing behind him.
“That is not a toy, Dr. Hodgins,” she chastises, and Fisher answers, “It kind of is, it’s a movie prop.”
“Stainless steel blade,” Hodgins says, looking at the sword. “That was new technology for the time. The edge is dull of course.”
“May I see it?” Bones asks, and he hands it over. She holds it out and notes, “It’s badly balanced…and the blade is warped.”
Perotta joins them on the forensics platform, telling them that all the prints on the sword belong to Kendra Kim. She gestures to the sword, asking, “Could this be the murder weapon?”
“She wasn’t stabbed or slashed,” Fisher answers, one earbud still in his ear as the other hangs down by his hand. “The damage to her jaw was unique, it wasn’t from being struck with a sword.”
Sweets swipes his card and joins them too. “Is that the sword?” He holds up his gloved hands. “Can I?” Grinning like a little kid, Sweets takes the sword from Bones and dramatically says, “An elegant weapon from a more civilized age.”
“Actually the age in which swords were the primary infantry weapon was some of the most barbaric in history,” Bones answers, completely missing the quote.
“It’s a line from Star Wars,” Perotta answers, trying not to laugh.
Sword still in hand, Sweets answers, “Obi-Wan Kenobi.”
“What language is that supposed to be?” Bones asks, confused.
Agent Perotta just looks at her, and Hodgins asks, “Why is he so excited?”
“Finding this sword has given us a unique advantage in this case,” Sweets answers, laying the sword back on the table. Fisher puts his earphones back in his ear as Sweets explains, “We now have what tha killer wants most. It only makes since that the killer’s gonna come after it again.”
“Dr. Sweets wants to lay a trap,” Perotta explains, sitting down at a table with Sweets, who removes his gloves, and answers, “You said that the auctioneer’s no longer a suspect, correct?”
“So we lean on him to fake the auction?”
“We can’t auction off evidence,” Bones answers, and Sweets frowns.
“I never thought of that.”
“We could insert an undercover asset,” Hodgins answers, getting an idea. “Who outbids the item no matter how high the price goes.”
Ah-ha! Sweets points at him. Great idea.
“The auction is tomorrow,” Perotta says, shaking her head. “I don’t have time to set up that kind of operation.”
Sweets raises his hand. “I’ll do it. You and Dr. Brennan have already been seen walking through the ImagiCon asking questions, right? Whereas, I am an unknown quantity. An enigma. Who is this man bidding so aggressively for Excalibur?” Hodgins and Bones exchange an amused look as Sweets adds, “I’m convinced that if our killer is there, this will provoke him to reveal himself.”
Perotta doesn’t look convinced, so Sweet finishes, “I play the mystery bidder, you observe the unsuspecting suspects via a video feed in a separate room—”
“Who’s gonna run the camera?” Perotta asks, and Sweets sighs.
“We need someone who blends in. Someone who looks like they belong there.”
“I drug your ghost across the country,” Fisher suddenly starts singing to himself, having missed the entire conversation as he worked at the computer listening to his music. “Plotted out my death in every city, memories would whisper, she was where—” Suddenly he notices everyone is looking at him and pulls out his earbuds. “What’s wrong now?”
Everybody turns to Sweets. Yep, looks like we got our cameraman.
~*~*~
At the Auction Hall, Fisher sits in the audience with the camera as Bones and Perotta watch on the computer in another room.
“Is there a reason you wanted me here, Agent Perotta?” Bones asks.
“I-I thought you wanted to be involved in the investigation,” she answers, then tells Fisher, “Ah, okay, pan around.” He does. They notice both Kroon and Valerie Daniels in the bidding audience. “Let’s hope she doesn’t recognize Sweets.”
Suddenly Bones notices, “There’s the Black Knight. Valerie Daniel’s said that a black knight gave Kendra the sword.”
“Alright,” Perotta says, looking at the video feed. “Stay on this one Fisher.”
The auction continues with the next item, and Sweets is in the audience, dressed as a space commander.
“Bidding starts at $,10,000,” Carl Derf calls out, and an elvin warrior raises his bidding paddle. The bidding continues as they all watch until it’s sold. The sword is next. Perotta tells Fisher to find Sweets, and he swings the camera around until he finds Sweet’s red shirt.
“Try to keep that giant fuzzy thing between you and Valerie Daniels,” Perotta tells him.
“She won’t recognize me,” Sweets assure, and Bones asks, “Where did he get that disguise on such short notice?”
“My guess is his closet,” Perotta answers.
The sword comes out and the audience perks up. As Carl Derf announces that bidding will start at $50,000, Valerie Daniels suddenly gets up and sits down next to Fisher.
“This will separate the men from the boys,” Derf jokes, and Valerie is the first to bid. “Or the women!”
Fisher tries to inconspicuously keep the camera posed as Derf asks, “Do I hear 55? 60?”
Sweets raises his paddle.
“60! From the gentlemen from the future with the red lips.”
Sweets wipes at his lips as Valerie bids against him. Suddenly a man in a suit holds up his paddle and announces, “150.” Everyone is shocked.
“Fisher, let me take a look at this guy,” Perotta says into her mic as she and Bones squint at the computer screen.
Fisher goes pans the camera around to the man as Derf announces, “$150,000, going once…going twice…” Sweets raises his paddle. Valerie raises hers. The mystery bidder bids $200,000. The audience is shocked.
Valerie: Who is that guy?
Bones: Who is that guy?
“$300,000!” Sweets calls out, raising his paddle, and Derf looks to the man in the suit. “Sir?” The mystery bidder holds up four fingers. “$400,000!”
A member of the audience faints.
Bones starts muttering about when the Praetorian Guard took over Rome and auctioned off the entire Empire, admitting, “I don’t know why I’m nervous, but I am."
“Sweets,” Perotta reminds urgently. “It’s fake money! Do it!” Even so, Sweets is still sweating bullets. “Do it!”
“Five-hundred!” he finally shouts out and even the girl holding the sword for display is shocked. Derf looks to the man in the suit and Valerie. “A half a million dollars…Sir? Ma’am?”
“500,000 going once…going twice…SOLD! To the skinny captain man dressed as a—congratulations, sir.”
Bones and Perotta both jump in excitement, catching themselves just before they high-five each other. Everyone around Sweets congratulates Sweets, and Valerie turns to look at Fisher.
“How you doin’?” he asks, and she smirks. “I’m makin’ a documentary.”
The man in the suit gets up and Perotta pulls out her ear piece. “Well I am going to go talk to James Bond.”
She catches up to him just outside the Auction Hall. Holding up her badge, she tells him, “Nice suit. You got a minute?”
~*~*~
Back in the room where they watched the auction, Perotta glances at the man’s passport. “Badgley Mormont? Is that your real name?”
“Of course it’s my real name,” the Englishman answers. It’s a family name. He asks for his passport back because he has to catch a plane soon. He tells her the reason he was bidding on the sword was because he represents a group known as the “Arthurian Consortium. They house the largest collection of materials relating to Camelot. They wanted the sword.”
Suddenly Derf comes out, a big grin on his face. “That was actually pretty wild.” He laughs. “But I want to assure you no one realized the auction was bogus.”
Perotta is trying to get him to stop talking, but it’s too late. Badgley angrily asks, “The auction was fixed?! I’m going to sue you, and I’m going to sue you!” he finishes, pointing at both of them.
Perotta glances at Derf, who just shrugs. Whoops, sorry!
~*~*~
~*~*~
A man dressed as the Black Night walks up to the car and smashes his armored hand through the back window. Sweets and Bones are both out in the front seat. The noise wakes up Bones, who glances at Sweets, who’s still out, and jumps out of the car.
“Hey! Stop!” She runs after the knight, who turns and starts trying to get her with the sword. Bones fights him off, knocking away his advances, and eventually gets some punches in there herself. Sweets wakes up just in time to see Bones catch the sword under her arm and swing it around to begin hitting the black knight. After a head shot that knocks him down, the knight runs off back up to his waiting car.
“Sweets, are you alright?” Bones runs back to the car to look in the window.
“Mad props,” Sweets mumbles, head barely off the collapsed airbag.
“Thank…you okay?”
Sweets collapses on the steering wheel, setting off the horn in a long beeeeeeeeeeeeeeep…
~*~*~
After hearing about Bones’s car accident, Booth calls. “I’m comin’ in, alright?” he tells her as he hobbles painfully around his apartment. “You could have been killed!”
“No, you shouldn’t move Booth. With a herniated disk, the splintered cartilage could irritate the nerves.”
“I’m fine.”
“So the pain is gone?”
Silently crying out in pain as he sits, down, Booth answers, “Don’t feel a thing!” Getting down on his hands and knees, he adds, “I might not be moving as fast but heeey—“ he tries not to let on his pain “—I haven’t lost my edge!” Crawling around his coffee table, Booth asks, “So why wasn’t Perotta with you?”
Bones glances up at the other woman standing on the other side of the room and answers, “I was with Sweets.”
“That’s like being protected by a smurf,” Booth answers, then says, “The guy who was in charge? I don’t even know his name, but he was blue, and a small guy…”
“Booth, have you taken more vicodin?”
“Huh?”
“Look, Booth, I’m fine. Sweets is fine, a little shaken up, but really we’re both fine. Please, don’t come in.”
“If you think so—” Booth tries to stand up, his eyes widen in pain, and he sinks back to his knees. “I’m ready!”
“That’s amazing in your condition.”
“You know me…”
“I really think you should just take your vicodin and just rest.”
“Right, okay.” Booth pops a few pills in his mouth and mumbles, “I wanna talk to Perotta.”
“Alright.” Bones holds up the phone. “He wants to talk to you.”
“How are you, Agent Booth?”
Clinging to the edge of his coffee table, Booth answers, “The only reason that I am not coming in right now is because Bones told me not to. But she’s your responsibility, okay? Nothing can happen to her, okay?” Leaning back on his arms against the floor and starting to feel the effects of the vicodin, he adds, “If anything happens to her…you know, that silky black hair…oh that soft skin…”
“I will not let her out of my sight, you have my word,” Perotta quickly interrupts. “Now, uh, we should really get back to the case, Agent Booth.”
Now lying flat on the floor, Booth half-heartedly grabs a bowling pin and tries to use it as a pillow. “Am I stopping you?” he slurs.
Perotta hangs up. Booth grabs his remote and happily clicks on cartoons. He laughs.
~*~*~
Perotta tells Bones that she’s “going to go try and round up as many black knights as she can at a ImagiCon. In the mean time, please don’t go out into the field without me.”
“I don’t need a sitter,” Bones insists. “Booth gets needlessly protective sometimes, I have no idea why.”
Perotta stares at her a moment, shaking her head. “You really don’t, do you?”
“No.”
“Just call me.” With that, Perotta leaves.
~*~*~
Meanwhile, Hodgins analyzes the paint chips left on Sweet’s car, and Angela is worried about Sweets and Bones. “You know, they could have been killed, Hodgins. Sweets is way too young for this, he still has to show his ID to drink.”
“Well they weren’t,” Hodgins gently tries to remind her.
“And Brennan,” Angela goes on. “She shouldn’t be putting herself in danger like this.
“Angela, she cares too much to keep it all in the lab and you’re never gonna change her,” Hodgins answers, typing at his computer.
“But why can’t she just get her rocks off through sex?” Angela asks. “Like a normal person, right?”
“I agree. And, in the spirit of friendship,” he adds, turning to look at her. “If you ever, uh…”
The computer beeps and Angela smirks. “Saved by the beep, huh?”
Hodgins looks at the computer results. “The paint is from an early 90s Ford Explorer. Now all Perotta has to do is find an evil black knight that owns one.”
~*~*~
Cam is looking over the sword, and notes that there’s some blood on it. “So you landed some hits on the errant knight, he’s injured.” Bones asks if she can pull DNA from it, and Cam reminds her that it’ll only do them good if they have something to compare it to.
Bones notices that there are some fresh nicks and scratches on the blade. “Only metal would damage the blade like this.”
“Was he wearing armor?”
“No, his movement wasn’t constricted at all.”
“He jangled,” Sweets suddenly says, joining them.
“Sweets, how are you feeling?” Cam asks.
“Appreciative of the airbag,” he answers, pointing to the wound on his head. “Oh, the doctor says I’m find, thanks.”
“He jangled…” Bones mutters, and Cam asks if he could have had a lot of change in his pocket.
“I wasn’t particularly observant, because during the attack I secreted copious quantities of adrenaline.”
Both Cam and Sweets try very hard not to laugh.
“An attack is an acceptable excuse, Dr. Brennan,” Cam answers, stumbling over her laughter. “I’ll have Hodgins examine the sword and see what he can find.” Still grinning, Cam leaves.
“Uh, hey,” Sweets says as Bones starts to leave too. “I have to thank you Dr. Brennan. For saving my life. I owe you a great deal.”
“I’m sure you would have done the same for me Dr. Sweets, if I had been trapped in the car.” She start to walk by him, but he stops her again.
“Yeah, though I have to say, you were quite impressive with that sword. Your moves?” He acts them out. “Very Xena-ish.”
“Xena?”
“Xena. She’s a tall warrior princess who’s really…” He sighs. “A fantasy.”
“Okay…thank you, I think.”
Again she tries to leave, and again he follows her, asking, “Oh hey, since we shared this brush with death, Dr. Brennan, I was wondering if I could also call you “Bones” in future moments of shared camaraderie?”
“Don’t,” she nods. “Call me Bones”
“You sure about that, Bones?” Sweets calls after her, grinning as she finally manages to get past him down the stairs.
~*~*~
At the FBI, Perotta has a room full of black knights wandering around checking out each others costumes.
“None of them drive a Ford Explorer, and they all have alibis,” she tells Cam over the phone. “Four can be corroborated by their moms.”
“Any way for you to get blood samples?”
“No. And dressing like a medieval knight isn’t exactly enough to get a warrant to collect DNA.”
Behind her, one of the knights goes over to help his fellow knight with his helmet.
“Maybe you could get the names of a few more black knights from these black knights,” Cam answers.
“Okay,” Perotta says, not to happy with it. “But I gotta tell you, being addressed as ‘my lady’ for two hours makes one a little cranky.”
Cam laughs and clicks off the phone. Perotta hangs up and heads back into the room with the knights.
“My lady,” two of them say, simultaneously bowing as she enters.
~*~*~
Back at the lab, Fisher suddenly rushes in with an old torture device in his hand, announcing, “This is the murder weapon.” Cam stares at the strange device as he adds, “Not the literal murder weapon, I’m not that good, but it certainly falls within the genre or type.”
“What is it?”
“The Pear of Anguish. A mideival torture device. Valerie had it.”
Cam stares at him. “Valerie…”
“Valerie Daniels.”
“One of the suspects in the case, Valerie Daniels?”
“Yeah.”
“How did you get it?”
“Oh, do we really have to get into that?”
“Now we do, yeah,” she answers.
“Our eyes met at the auction, we shared a bleak and profound hopelessness.”
Cam can’t believe it. “You spent the night with the suspect.”
“Yeah,” Fisher answers, missing her tone. “Valerie enjoys quite a collection of torture devices and other archaic implements used for pleasure rather than pain.” He spots a fake skull and asks, “May I?”
“Sure,” Cam answers, at a loss.
"This particular Pear of Anguish was to be inserted in either the vagina or anus. There are larger ones for the mouth.” He sets the skull down and puts the Pear of Anguish in its mouth, demonstrating, “As it is opened, it expands the hard palette and mandible in equal proportions, which would give exactly these injuries.” He gestures to the victim’s x-rays. “Crushing the maxilla and zygomatic, thrusting the bones into the brain, killing the victim.” Cam winches as she watches the Pear of Anguish break apart the skull.
“That is one horrible way to die.”
“I wish the depravity and cruelty of human behavior surprised me,” Fisher answers depressingly.
“Does that extend to disciplinary action?” Cam asks. “Because you are in big trouble my melancholy friend.”
“Of course I am. Who could expect a night of love to last?” He hands over the Pear of Anguish and leaves. Cam drops it to two fingers, looking around for a place to put it.
~*~*~
At the lab, Hodgins tells everyone that he’s done every test he could think of on the sword. Sitting in a corner by himself, Fisher asks, “Can I say something?”
“The only thing I’m willing to hear from you Mr. Fisher, is ‘I hereby tender my resignation’,” Cam answers.
“Practically speaking,” Bones says, looking at the weapon. “This sword wasn’t worth enough to kill for.”
“Anything is worth killing for then everything is work killing for,” Fisher answers depressingly, staring at the floor.
“It’s worth so much because it appeared in the movie,” Hodgins explains.
“That’s conveyed value,” Bones answers. “Intrinsically, it can’t be worth more than a few hundred dollars.”
“You mean if it really was a sword from 100 AD you’d understand killing for it?” Cam asks sarcastically, and Bones just nods. “Yes, I would. I’d very much like to examine a sword like that.”
Hodgins and Cam just shake their head as she asks about the marks on the sword, and Hodgins confirms that it struck something metal.
“Chain mail,” Fisher speaks up even though he’s not supposed to. They all turn to look at him, and he adds, “I’m thinking chain mail…”
“Huh…” Bones glances back at the sword.
“What?”
“The knight who attacked me? Was authentic. He used two attack maneuvers, The Serpent, and The Arrowhead.”
“Could have learned them from movies,” Fisher offers.
“Movies never show combatants holding the sword correctly,” Bones answers. “Which is one hand on the handle and the other on the blade.” Cam and Hodgins lean quickly out of the way as Bones picks up the sword to illustrate. “Our assailant’s form was historically accurate.” They lean back in as she places it back on the table.
“So uh, you believe you were attacked by an actual Arthurian Knight?” Hodgins asks, and Bones frowns.
“No. Time travel is scientifically impossible. But I was attacked by someone trained in archaic Marshal arts, wearing chainmail.” Heading out, Bones says, “Hodgins, we’re going to need to use your metal detector again.”
He nods. “Sure.”
After a moment, Cam nods after Bones. “I think she means that you should go with her.”
“Oh…Yeah, right, hey, field trip!” he leaves.
~*~*~
At the car crash site, Hodgins searches with his metal detector. It starts to beep.
“What’s that?” Bones asks, looking up.
“Part of Sweet’s car. You think he wants it back?”
Bones shrugs. “I’ll ask him.”
Hodgins goes back to searching. “So what am I looking for exactly? Maybe the Black Knight dropped his metal wallet?”
“Uh, no,” Bones answers, completely missing the humor. “Historically, that would have been a leather sack held together with flax thread, it wouldn’t register on your metal detector.”
Hodgins just shakes his head in amusement.
“I hit him hard,” Bones says, looking around. “Perhaps hard enough to dislodge—“ Her eye catches something and she picks it up, showing to Hodgins. “—Some of his chain mail.”
~*~*~
Back at the lab, Hodgins shows them the chain mail.
Cam: Is it real?
Hodgins: If by real you mean does it come from Medieval times, no. No, but it’s a very good replica.
He magnifies the picture, adding that it’s historically accurate, but the smelting methods for the rodiron are modern.
“Can you trace the manufacturer?”
“I had Fisher do it.”
Cam glances from Fisher back to Hodgins, suspiciously. “Are you trying to help someone? Because that’s not in your character.”
“The way I see it, Fisher’s like a deep cover agent. He infiltrate the enemy to uncover secrets, in order to do so, he had to suffer a night of passion with a beautiful, but dangerous, enemy.”
“You have no idea how dangerous,” Fisher adds, and Hodgins tells Cam, “He’s sort of my hero.”
Cam just shakes her head. “Alright, what’ve you got?”
Fisher jumps up. He didn’t have to go far, as there are only three manufacturers working at this level with these materials. He shows her the folder, asking, “Can I please keep my job? If I promise to never ever have sex again with anyone, which by the way suits me temperamentally? I happen to be very self-sufficient.”
Closing her eyes in amusement, Cam answers, “I won’t require that Mr. Fisher, but I do require discretion.”
“Nothing will pass these lips again Dr. Saroyan. Even if a scary hot woman in black leather uses the Pear of Anguish on me.” Hodgins can’t hide his amusement either, and glances at Cam as Fisher adds, “Which, I’m actually afraid she—” He stops at Cam’s look.
Turning to the information in her hand, Cam flips to a page with an article about Peter Kroon. “Kroon the Blacksmith.”
~*~*~
Bones and Perotta interrogate Kroon at the FBI.
“You started out as a serious historian at Yale,” Bones start. “You studied Medieval warfare and Chelserian Literature at Oxford. You’re a published poet.”
“You’re wondering how a man with all my potential ended up selling artifacts to fantasy geeks?”
“No,” Bones answers simply. “I don’t care.”
Perotta tells him that his car matches the one that drove Bones and Sweets off the road, his wound matches the one Bones delivered to her assailant, it was his blood on the sword, and they found fragments of his chain mail.
“We know you did it,” Bones tells him and Perotta adds, “We just don’t know why.”
Bones: Well, we don’t care why.
Perotta: Well, I kinda do, I mean it’s pretty essential to a conviction…
“I know why,” Sweets interrupts from the observation room. He holds up a book. “Read this to him: "What is a man without his love? If love turn his back on thee, it is as a hearth with no fire. 'Tis best to slay the false heart, to waken from the dream that is life, than live dark hearted in a dark world."
Kroon swallows hard and Perotta asks him what that was.
“It’s mine,” he answers. “I wrote that.”
“That’s a confession,” Sweets says, and Bones repeats it to Kroon.
“I loved her,” Kroon admits. “It’s stupid, but…love is stupid, you know?”
“You gave her the sword,” Perotta answers. “You’re most valued possession, and she tried to sell it for rent.”
“You killed her because she wanted to sell a movie prop?” Bones asks.
“You don’t understand. No one understands true love anymore!” Kroon sighs, at a loss.
~*~*~
Bones is at Booth’s apartment inspecting his X-rays.
“So he killed her because he loved her so much?” Booth asks, wincing against his back pain.
“The age of chivalry was irrational,” Bones answers, lowering the X-ray from the light. “Knights, maidens, thank goodness we’ve moved through the Reformation and the Enlightenment to the Age of Reason.” She holds the X-ray back up to the light, pointing. “Do you see what I mean?”
“Not at all,” he answers, then adds, “I gotta tell you, I think they had a pretty good idea with the whole chivalry thing. Open car doors, killed dragons…small hearts…”
“Are you still on vicodin?”
“Yeah, a little.”
“Okay, what I’m trying to show you I that your doctor is wrong. You’ve been misdiagnosed.”
“Give me that, what?” Booth takes the X-ray from her.
“Just a slight misalignment, I’d be happy to fix it for you.”
“Oh no, no, no, last time you did that I almost ended up in a wheelchair.” He hands her back the x-ray, and she asks, “Don’t you trust me?”
“Let’s not make it about trust.”
“It’s a fact,” Bones answers, putting the X-ray back in the envelope and setting it down. “A fact is not what I make of it, it’s just a fact. Are you ready?”
Booth groans as he stands up. “Definitely not ready now, thanks.” Wincing and trying to prepare himself for another back crack, Booth lets Bones position her arms under his again. There’s a knock at the door, and Booth calls, “Argh, it’s open!”
Bones starts maneuvering him around again and *Crack!*
“Oh!” Perotta stops dead in the doorway as she watches Bones crack Booth’s back into place. “Uh, I didn’t—I-I thought you said the door was open.”
Booth and Bones look at her innocently. Booth nods, and Bones answers, “It is open. I’m done. I’m just leaving.”
“Oh no, no, no—“ Perotta laughs, holding up a bag. “I just, uh, brought some chili I made, but uh…you know what? I’ll just leave that, uh, there.” She sets the bag down in the kitchen. “And you can…um…Are you alright?”
Bones still has her hands under his arms and answers, “He’s fine now.”
“I gotta tell you, I’m afraid to move,” Booth answers, and Bones once again insists, “He’s fine.”
Perotta nods, confused, and Bones lets go of Booth. “Please, you stay,” she tells Perotta as she heads for the door.
“Oh no, I really-I really can’t, so you, you stay.”
“Oh I’ve gotta go. I can’t stay.” Bones heads for the door and Perotta awkwardly heads out after her.
“Great, no nobody’s gonna stay?” Booth calls after them both. The door shuts. “Hello?”
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