[Open Int. Lab. Angela and Bones are standing on opposite sides of a lit up table with a skeleton laid out on it. Bones has a skull in her hand gluing pieces to it.]
Angela: So I spent the night at Todd’s. You remember Todd right? The bass player with the big hands, big nimble hands?
Bones: Angela I’m trying to piece together a skull.
Angela: You’re doing a great job. So I wake up this morning and he’s sitting there right? No clothes on just his bass. Singing to me in this low, low voice, it was creepy.
Bones: Angela, is this conversation really appropriate here?
Angela: Sorry but I’m into live people. Anyway Todd has a friend.
Bones: I thought you said he was creepy?
Angela: Todd, not the friend.
(Zach enters)
Zach: Good news.
Bones: I hope this is work related.
Zach: The Anthropology Journal is publishing our piece on the evolution of the Coronals suture.
Bones: for the interruption.
(Bones places the skull on the table and Zach holds his fist up to her.)
Zach: You’re supposed to bump my fist with yours.
Bones: Why?
Zach: I’m told it’s a widely acknowledge gesture of mutual success.
Angela: I love it when you two impersonate earthlings.
(Hodgins enters carrying a red box with a blue bow on it.)
Hodgins: (to Bones) Okay now, this is weird. There’s some guy in the lounge who asked me to give you this.
Angela: Is he alive because this is an excellent start to a relationship?
(Bones opens the box, pulls out a shoe and looks at it.)
Hodgins: I didn’t put a mirror underneath his nose or anything. He said that you’d know who he was when you opened it.
(Bones hands the box to Zach and walks off.)
Angela: Okay. A guy who gets her to stop working? This I have to see.
(They all go to follow her. Bones enters the main lab area and there is a guy up in the balcony looking down at her.)
Michael: You left it at my place.
(Bones looks up to speak to him)
Bones: Three years ago.
Michael: First time I’ve been to Washington thought that I should return it in person.
Bones: Why didn’t you tell me that you were coming?
Michael: What if you didn’t take my call? You’re a big important author now.
Bones: You could come down here you know.
Michael: You could come up.
Bones: Half-way.
Michael: As always.
(He comes all the way down and meets her and the crew is standing a little distance behind her now curious about this guy.)
Bones: I hope you don’t have any expectations?
Michael: Do you?
Bones: Civility.
Michael: I can handle that.
Bones: (smiles) So, why are you here?
Michael: George Washington University wants to talk to me about heading their Anthropology department.
Bones: They’d be lucky to get you.
Michael: I assume they tried you first.
Bones: I already had a job.
Hodgins: This is like watching cars mate.
Angela: It’s got to be Michael Stires, her forensic Anthropology professor from North Western. They were…
Hodgins: Very, very close?
Angela: (nods her head) Mm.
Zach: Dr. Brennan is my Forensic Anthropology professor. Does that mean?
Hodgins and Angela: No.
Bones: It seems like we should have dinner tonight, catch up?
Michael: Sounds reasonable.
(Booth walks in with some guys hauling a beat up refrigerator on a dolly.)
Booth: Hey Bones! (to guys) Whoa. Okay, put it here, easy. Bones! I got a present for ya straight out of an illegal ravine found in a dump in Fairfax. You see our forensic people confirmed it was human matter so rather then open it myself and risk being trashed by you for contaminating the evidence; I decided to bring the whole refrigerator to you.
Hodgins: All we need is a toaster oven.
Booth: (clears throat) Bones? (nods toward fridge.)
(Bones looks at the outside of the fridge and sniffs.)
Bones: Bodies going to be mostly decomposed.
Angela: Which is my cue to leave. (leaves)
Michael: This is where it gets fun.
Bones: Alright, you can open it.
Booth: Alright.
(Booth pops it open with a crowbar. Inside is a badly decomposed body. You can see the skeleton with blood on it and lots of grime pooling towards the bottom.)
Booth: Phew! Okay. Uh, he or she?
Bones: She.
Michael: Eighteen… early twenties.
Bones: I’m guessing she’s been in the refrigerator for a year. Is there enough insect activity to help us be more precise?
Hodgins: There’s always enough insect activity. (takes a swab of the body)
Bones: Remove and clean the bone Zach. Michael you can pick me up at 7:30, I’ll give you my address.
Michael: Beautiful lab.
Bones: Thanks.
(Bones and Michael walk off leaving Zach, Hodgins, and Booth looking at the body.)
Booth: Old friend?
Hodgins: Old teacher.
Booth: Yep, they’re actually going to uh, eat dinner after seeing this? Well it’s not soup.
Zach: If she was his student and I’m her student, then it follows…
Hodgins: Ain’t gonna happen Zach-O, not in this universe.
(Hodgins closes the refrigerator screen goes black.)
[Cut to: Bones in her office looking at a file on her desk. Angela enters carrying her sketch pad.]
Angela: (hands her pad) Here’s the sketch of the victim. Her skull was intact so it made it easy to work with.
Bones: (takes it) I just got her dental records (holds them up) Name…Maggie Schilling…nineteen.
Angela: (disappointed) Then I guess you don’t need this.
Bones: She was a dancer, found markers in her metatarsals.
Angela: God, they go from the freedom of dance to being crammed into a refrigerator. I hope she was already dead when they shut the door. (sits) He’s hotter then you said.
Bones: Michael?
Angela: Any other ex-lovers come knocking on your door today?
Bones: The ex in ex-lover is not a variable it’s a constant like…the speed of light.
Angela: Save your dirty talk for the hunky professor.
Bones: I can assure you, our relationship is purely plutonic. What we share is a love of science. Neither of us has the time or inclination for emotional complications.
Angela: (smiles) Sounds very reasonable.
Bones: Yes, now I have to get this data together for Booth.
Angela: Sure. (stands) Have a good dinner tonight.
[Cut to: Booth’s office. He is sitting at his desk and has a file out on Maggie Schilling. Bones is standing across the desk from him with a file also.]
Booth: Maggie Schilling went missing eleven months ago. (holds her picture up) Parents got a ransom note demanding a million dollars negotiations they dragged on for a couple of weeks then suddenly all contact stopped. The assumption was that the kidnappers killed her.
Bones: No visual physical trauma.
Booth: Cause of death?
Bones: Not yet but there are stress fractures on both wrists and we have some people running chemical analysis and toxicity screens on the affluent in the refrigerator.
Booth: Okay, you call me later?
Bones: (smiles) I’m not working tonight. I have a dinner.
Booth: What? Wow. I just assumed that the two of you would be eating off an autopsy table.
Bones: Not tonight.
Booth: I was being…tomorrow’s fine. Call me tomorrow.
[Cut to: Bones’s bedroom. She and Michael are in bed undressed and kissing.]
Bones: We missed our reservation.
Michael: Oh well, that’s the price we pay for deciding to pick exploration and discovery.
Bones: You realize this is just recreational, Michael?
Michael: Of course. I’m just impressed that we can just pick up where we left off like no time has passed.
Bones: Well, time is an opposed construct.
Michael: It’s nice to know we can rely on physics.
Bones: (laughs) Do you really think you would move here?
Michael: Depends on the offer?
Bones: Maybe I could get you a position at the Jeffersonian?
Michael: Working for my old student? (laughs)
Bones: Would that be a problem?
Michael: I don’t know we’re better when we’re not vying for dominance in the same arena.
Bones: I can’t help it if I’m usually right.
Michael: Does that mean you have closed the case on that girl in the fridge.
Bones: I found some stress fractures on the wrist, not much else but I will.
Michael: Same old confident Brennan.
Bones: I’m sorry it’s cold (inteligible)
(They kiss)
Michael: Old habits die hard.
Bones: She did fight, Michael. They kept her tied up like an animal but she fought. That’s how she got those stress fractures because she was bound and struggling. (sighs) I just uh, I keep seeing her face. You know how it is.
[Intro. Rolls]
[Cut to: Lab platform area. Angela, Zach, and Hodgins are standing over the bones.]
Hodgins: Using a refrigerator to hide a body…Pfft…kinda perfect isn’t it?
Zach: A good way to remove the victim without being detected. The rubber gasket sealed in the odor.
Angela: Maybe the company should use that in their ads? She’s late, she’s never late.
Hodgins: You worried about her?
Angela: I’m happy for her.
Zach: Why?
Hodgins: Remember that time you were late?
Zach: Oh…yeah.
(Bones enters the lab and walks up the stairs with Michael following.)
Bones: Good morning all.
Angela: You know you can take the day off. You deserve one day.
Bones: Well Michael wanted to look at our equipment.
Angela: I’m gonna let that one go. The guys wanted to meet him anyway.
Bones: They could learn a lot from him.
(Bones and Angela are near the table and the guys are off to the side where they can’t hear them.)
Hodgins: (arms crossed) You were Brennan’s professor?
Michael: She was twenty-three, an adult.
Hodgins: That’s what Clinton said.
Zach: Do you run through a lot of students?
Michael: That was a long time ago and Tempe was very advanced, more colleague then student.
Zach: (to Hodgins) I’m a pretty advanced student.
Michael: No offense but uh, I’m not interested. (walks over to table.)
Zach: No, uh, I meant me and her.
Hodgins: (laughs) Ho, ho burn.
(They join the others at the table with the skeleton on it.)
Bones: What have you found?
Zach: X-rays reveal low bone density and the parathyroid hormone levels are also low. There’s a medical condition called hyperparathyroidism.
Bones: Symptoms include, muscle weakness, brittle bones, yeah I know.
Michael: You may be premature with your struggle theory.
Bones: I doubt that.
Michael: You mean you don’t want to be doubted.
Bones: I can take it.
Michael: The wrists fractures could have resulted from her medical condition.
Bones: Unlikely, however…
Michael: Or been an unrelated cause of non-traumatic fissures.
Bones: Non-traumatic? (hands x-rays to him) Look at these.
Michael: Well, it’s something to consider. The last thing you want to do is jump to conclusions without evidence. I mean I know how much you want to find who did this.
Hodgins: This seems like an appropriate moment to discuss human goop. Chemical analysis of the liver and kidney tissues reveal significance evidence of the narcotic hydromorphone.
Bones: Hydromorphone?
Michael: Also known as hospital heroine.
Bones: In what kind of concentration?
Hodgins: Given her probable size and weight, it’s fatal.
Angela: Where’d you go to dinner last night?
Bones: We wound up staying in. We need to know if that amount was accrued over time or was delivered in one large dose.
Angela: You didn’t come back to the lab did you?
Michael: I made a frittata.
Angela: Oh wow. He cooks too. Can we share him?
Bones: We also need to know if the hydromorphone was administered intravenously or orally.
Michael: I should get going. I meeting with the board at the University, call you after my appointment. It was nice meeting you all.
(Michael leaves and the crew is just staring at Bones.)
Bones: What? Is it so odd for everyone to see me with a man?
(They all nod)
Bones: (to Hodgins) Print out the levels of hydromorphone you found in her system. (to Zach) I want you to find the overload point that would cause the fractures in her wrist and examine the left ilium there seems to be some kind of degeneration on the edge. (walks away)
[Cut to: Schilling’s house. Day. The victim’s parents are talking with Booth and Bones in their living room.]
Mother: I know this sounds terrible but I hoped that she had just run away that way I could believe she was still alive.
Father: She started turning against us in high school, did a lot of drugs. We tried to help her, sent her to rehab, therapy.
Booth: You know kids have a lot to contend with these days.
Mother: We didn’t help her, not really. We had nannies to raise her because we were so busy and we sent her to shrinks when she had problems instead of talking to her.
Booth: Look you can’t blame yourself.
Bones: But environment plays a huge role in development.
[Booth clears his throat and looks at her. He then looks at the parents.]
Bones: I’d like some pictures of Maggie so I can compare them to her remains. Pictures of her dancing would be most helpful or swimming.
Mother: How do you know she danced and swam?
Bones: Some things can’t be erased from the body.
Booth: I’m sorry but I need to ask you about your daughter’s drug problems. Do you know what she was using?
Father: Alcohol, ecstasy, marijuana…
Booth: What about the narcotic hydromorphone, hospital heroine?
Mother: Doesn’t sound familiar.
Bones: She had a thyroid condition, was anything prescribed for that?
Father: Her endocrinologist might know.
Mother: (hands Bones pictures) We have to find who did this to Maggie. We have to do this for her.
[Dr. Barragan’s Office. Day. Bones and Booth are talking to him.]
Dr. Barragan: Maggie’s condition didn’t respond to medication. I was trying to get her to agree to surgery when she disappeared.
Bones: What types of medication are we talking about?
Dr. Barragan: Furosemide, alendronate tried various calcitonins.
Booth: What about hydromorphone?
Dr. Barragan: There are no pain issues associated with hyperthyroidism but I knew Maggie had a drug problem. She was definitely interested in getting some Opiates from me. She bribed my office manager for samples.
Booth: I’m going to need your office managers’ home address.
Dr. Barragan: Ex-office manager, she’s going to be what you call a disgruntled employee.
[Costello’s apartment. Booth and Bones are talking to Mary, the office manager and her husband, Scott.]
Mary: I didn’t give Maggie Schilling those samples, she boosted them herself. Barragan just blamed me so he would have an excuse to fire me.
Booth: Why’d he fire you?
Mary: Because he’s a horn dog. I tried to keep things professional you know what I mean.
Bones: Dr. Barragan said that you were closer to Maggie Schilling then any other patient.
Mary: Did you meet her parents?
Bones: Yes.
Mary: Then you know the poor girl was pretty much on her own and we took her in.
Bones: He said that you went out together that you took her to clubs.
Scott: We just felt sorry for her, you know. She was lonely so we showed her a good time, right?
(Mary keeps talking and the camera follows Booth into the kitchen. He notices the refrigerator. He makes sure they are not watching him and he pushes the refrigerator back.)
Mary: pills, vodka, weed
Scott: We wanted Maggie to go to meetings, you know. AA
(Booth notices the rust stains from an old refrigerator and comes back into the living room area.)
Booth: That’s very kind of you. Let’s talk about your new refrigerator.
Mary: Why?
Booth: Mainly, I would like to know what happened to your old one, huh?
(Mary just smirks at him.)
[Cut to: Same Apartment but later. Booth has his FBI guys there searching the place.]
Booth: Well the fridge we found Maggie in is a match with the marks on the Costello’s floor.
Bones: They’re sadomasochist fetishists.
Booth: Yeah. (picks up box and sets it down) They turned the basement into a fun room.
Bones: Seeking sexual gratification through the manipulation of power. (she picks up some kind of bondage item with a gloved hand) probably the oldest of fetishes, master-slave. It’s all about dominance.
Booth: Well this sort of thing only comes up when the bloom goes off the rose, if you know what I mean.
Bones: I don’t know what you mean.
Booth: You know when the regular stuff, when it gets old you need to spice it up or it’s over. The sex is good you don’t need any help.
Bones: (smiles) Well that’s for sure.
Booth: I’m sorry?
Bones: I was agreeing.
Booth: Yeah, well don’t. Okay. It kind of freaks me out.
Bones: I was just saying that I, myself, feel no inclination towards either pain or dominance when it comes to sex.
Booth: Are you sure?
Bones: Yeah I’m sure.
Booth: Because you can be very bossy.
(Booth turns to look at some pink fuzzy handcuffs and Bones whips him in the shoulder with a crop. Booth whistles and picks up handcuffs with a pen. He holds them out in front of the Costello’s as they are being walked out of the apartment handcuffed.)
Booth: (to Scott) Look at him huh? Woo. Look at him all smiley I bet he just loves these things.
Bones: (takes them off the pen) These could explain the stress fractures. (she opens one of the cuffs up) Her bones were brittle from the disease, struggling would cause the cracks we saw.
[Cut to: FBI interrogation room. Mary is there with her lawyer, Neil Meredith. She still has a cocky attitude. Booth and Bones are questioning her.]
Bones: The handcuffs are consistent with the injuries to Maggie Schillings wrists.
Mary: (smirking) Maybe she wanted to be cuffed. Did you ever think about that?
Booth: Here’s what I was thinking, female, dominant, strapped for cash meets wealthy teenager on the outs with her parents, convinces her submissive husband to hold her for ransom.
Meredith: Any proof or is this story time?
Booth: You feed her pills to keep her quiet and negotiations, they drag on so she dies of an overdose before an exchange could be made. You seal her up in a refrigerator and dump her in a ravine, and you and your honey go back to playing tie me up in the basement.
Meredith: Maggie Schilling was legally an adult. We don’t deny she was in the house, even cuffed. We don’t deny there was a perfectly legal sexual relationship which by its nature got rough but Maggie was a willing participant.
Mary: And enthusiastic.
Meredith: You have no evidence my client’s killed her.
Booth: (to Mary) It’s weird for you, huh? Being the one that’s all locked up.
Mary: (sits forward) Why don’t you come at me? Are you threatened or do I turn you on?
Booth: Now I’m the one who’s hating Psychology. (Bones smiles at him)
Meredith: If you don’t have anything but those cuffs, my clients will be out of here in 24 hours.
[Cut to: Lab. Bones and Michael are walking together towards the platform talking.]
Bones: I figured it out. I was right about how she got those fractures.
Michael: I just don’t have the time Tempe, I have an appointment.
Bones: Well, I thought you would want to see. The University can wait a few minutes.
Michael: (stops walking and faces her.)It’s not with them it’s with someone they want me to meet and if we start debating evidence, I will definitely be late.
Bones: Trust me, there’s nothing to debate. I can prove that Maggie Schilling was bound in fur covered handcuffs. We found strands of matching fur embedded in her wrists in the scaphoid lunate.
Michael: But you can’t prove she was involuntarily restrained.
Bones: Oh yes I can.
Michael: It’s not a competition.
Bones: No, the Olympics are a competition. Ours is a struggle to the death.
Michael: You want to bet dinner? (puts out his hand for her to shake.)
Bones: Yes, if we make it to a restaurant.
Michael: That’s on. You got ten minutes.
Bones: Okay.
[Cut to: Platform in Lab. The bones are clean and sitting on a table. Bones is ordering the crew around to show Michael her proof. Michael is standing next to Booth who is looking on.]
Bones: Pull up frontal and lateral view of the victims’ lower fibulas.
Booth: (to Michael) You trained her well, Doc.
Michael: She’s brilliant, a little cocky though.
Booth: Ha. Yeah, tell me about it.
Zach: (to Bones) Here’s the leg. (They are looking at a computer screen together.)
Booth: (to Michael) She’s been a good partner though. What you see is what you get, it’s a rare quality. That’s just between us.
Bones: Michael.
(He looks up to listen to what they have to say.)
Zach: Dr. Brennan found marks on the medial malleoli, both left and right.
Bones: Her legs were bound.
Zach: There are erosion patterns from the bones rubbing together over time.
Booth: If this were a result of sex games then the legs they wouldn’t be bound together. (they all look at him.) Ah, come on, ya know. Looking for a little nooky the last thing you tie together are the legs.
Michael: I’m not convinced. Brittle bones from her thyroid condition, the damage could of happened in a very short time.
Bones: We also found evidence of inflammation on her right humerus and ilium.
Zach: The bone abnormalities indicate pathosis from lying in one position for a long time.
Bones: The only reasonable explanation is long term bondage.
Michael: Decreased bone density could have caused the inflammation. This isn’t definitive. I hear there’s a nice little French place near here I’d like to try.
Bones: I still have five minutes.
(They go to the holographic lab. Bones, Booth, Michael and Angela are there. There is a hologram of Maggie laying on her side with her hands and feet bound.)
Michael: My department is still working with Polaroid’s.
Bones: So, what do you think?
Michael: Very impressive, especially to the non-professional.
Angela: You want science? Give me the estimated time of captivity.
Bones: Approximately three weeks.
Angela: Okay, here are your affected areas, now doing an advanced time simulation.
Booth: (whispers to Bones) You’re winning, right?
(Bones nods.)
Michael: Can I see your findings?
(Bones hands over her file to him.)
Michael: This appears to be indisputable.
Bones: The narcotic found in her system was not the result of recreational drug abuse.
Angela: The inflammation would have been very painful and the pain would have increased over time.
Bones: They kept upping the dose of hydromorphone until they gave her too much and she died. Those people bound and killed that girl.
Michael: I yield. French restaurant?
Bones: I’m more in the mood for Italian. I need to put together the evidence package for Booth to deliver to the U.S. attorney.
Michael: I’ll meet you at your place. (hands folder back to Bones.)
Booth: Good work.
(He puts up his fist to bump it against hers and she just looks at it. He puts it down.)
[Cut to: Lab Lounge. Angela and Bones are seated opposite each other talking.]
Angela: Do you really think he can handle your success?
Bones: What because of today? We’ve always been competitive.
Angela: I know but he’s a man and his student, a woman, has surpassed him.
Bones: Michael is extremely secure, Ang.
Angela: Honey, when you stuck it to him today, he was upset.
Bones: It was a healthy debate between scientists. You don’t know Michael.
Angela: I know men and I know what happens when two people start sleeping together.
Bones: It’s not like that. We’re friends, colleagues, that’s all.
Angela: Colleagues with benefits.
Bones: I don’t know what that means but Michael and I are not involved. I’m sorry if that’s difficult for you to understand but what we have isn’t traditional.
Angela: Don’t talk to me about traditional, okay, I’ve dated circus people. You and Michael you have something and that’s okay, that’s good even. Just be honest about it.
(Booth comes walking up.)
Booth: Bones. The judge is um, holding them without bail. The US attorney is thinking about sending you flowers.
Bones: Facts are facts.
Booth: Ah, Bones I have to ask how much have you been sharing with uh, the professor?
Bones: None of your business.
Booth: I mean on the case.
Bones: Oh, I bounce everything off of him. Why?
Booth: You got to keep him out of it from now on.
Bones: Out of it. Why?
Booth: Well, you know that appointment that he had today?
Bones: Yeah.
Booth: He met with the Costello’s lawyer. Michael is their expert witness. It’s his job to tear apart the case that you’ve built.
[Cut to: Restaurant. Dining area. Bones and Michael are having dinner.]
Bones: How could I not be upset? Basically you were spying on me.
Michael: (huffs) Spying? It’s a criminal proceeding. You are required by law to disclose all your findings to the defense anyway.
Bones: I’m only required to provide you with the raw facts we intend to enter into evidence not the process by which I arrived at those facts.
Michael: I apologize that’s a nuance, it escaped me.
Bones: Why don’t you just tell me Michael?
Michael: Cause the defense isn’t required to tell the prosecution anything. In fact it’s grounds for a mistrial. Look, I’ve never done this before. You’re the teacher in this situation, I’m the student.
Bones: A little competitive.
Michael: Part of the job at the University is to be an expert witness and yes I would like to do that job at least as well as you but if you feel I’ve overstepped some boundary here, I’ll back out of the case.
Bones: No, but if you stay on you have to move back to the hotel.
Michael: Really?
Bones: Yes.
Michael: Hm, well would I have to do it tonight or should I order another bottle of wine?
Bones: I suppose tomorrow would be soon enough.
Michael: I apologize, Tempe. (they kiss)
[Cut to: Lab platform. Michael is examining all the bones and files Bones has gathered. Dr. Goodman, Bones, the team, and Booth are watching him. Bones does not look very happy.]
Booth: (hushed to Angela and Dr. Goodman) He’s still at it?
Angela: Yep and it is fascinating.
Booth: Why don’t you keep an eye on him?
Dr. Goodman: That’s not going to be a problem.
(Dr. Goodman gestures with his eyes towards Zach and Hodgins. Zach is holding a video camera taping everything Michael does and Hodgins is supervising him. Booth slowly gives them thumbs up and they both give him thumbs up back nodding their heads.)
Angela: (to Booth) Did you just give Zach and Hodgins a sign of encouragement?
Booth: Well, you know, that’s the first time I have been able to look at them without imagining Moe knocking their heads together.
Dr. Goodman: Agent Booth you’re accessing your inner squint.
Michael: Tempe you listed an avulsion fracture on the right femur, looks minor. Do you consider this evidence?
Booth: (clears throat and steps forward) Dr. Brennan’s conclusions belong to the prosecution.
Michael: I have no interest in destroying your case, Agent Booth. I’m just trying to get a sense…
Dr. Gibson: Of her interpretations of data to which you are not privy, Dr. Stires.
Bones: I understand the game the Doctor is trying to play and I’m perfectly capable of dealing with him myself. I’m sure he’s just thrown by findings he would have missed.
Dr. Goodman: This is not about you and Dr. Stires. This is about the Jeffersonian’s reputation as a source of expert witnesses.
Michael: Okay, (raises hands) I’m…I’m on my own. Oh, in the interest of fairness, I am willing to share my thoughts with you. I red penciled a few things.
Bones: You corrected my findings?
Michael: Consider it an opposing opinion.
Bones: (angry) My findings are based on facts Michael not opinions.
Dr. Goodman: You seem to have finished your allotted time with the remains, Dr. Stires. I’d like my people to get back to work.
Michael: Thank you. (smiles at Bones.)
[Cut to: Booth and Brennan walking through lab.]
Booth: Bones you okay?
Bones: Why wouldn’t I be?
Booth: Oh cause the nutty professor has graded your paper. What’d he give you anyway? I was always happy with a B.
Bones: I never got a B and I never will.
(Booth stops walking and she continues on.)
Booth: (to himself) That’s my girl.
[Cut to: FBI building. Day. Booth’s Office. Levitt and Deaver are standing in front of Booth’s desk and Bones is standing next to them. Booth is standing behind his desk.]
Booth: Assistant Attorney, Andrew Levitt, uh, jury consultant Joey Deaver, Dr. Temperance Brennan.
(Booth sits behind his desk)
Levitt: (shakes her hand) Nice to meet you. I’ve looked over your findings and I think we are in good shape.
Bones: Thank You…I would…
Deaver: Juries don’t like you.
Bones: Excuse me?
Deaver: I’ve seen you testify before Dr. Brennan. You come off cold and aloof. I want to make sure…
Bones: Cold and aloof?
Deaver: Try not interrupting, it makes you sound arrogant. Also don’t front load your testimony with technical crap.
Booth: Look, this really is not the best approached.
Bones: I’m a technical witness. I have testified in over thirty trials.
Deaver: But most of the experts you’ve come up against are as dry and boring as you are. Now I don’t know if you’ve seen their expert…
Booth: She’s seen him, Ms. Deaver.
Deaver: Well then you understand my concern. Professor Stires is open, charming, great looking. The jury’s going to love him. I love him.
Bones: This isn’t a personality contest. It’s about data that we present to the jury.
Deaver: You’re kidding, right? The women on the jury aren’t going to be listening to a word that comes out of his mouth. They’re going to be undressing him... I don’t want the men on the jury to be putting more clothes on you. Wear something blue it suggests truth, make eye contact with the jury, and loose the clunky necklace.
Bones: Mary and Scott Costello murdered Maggie Schilling. The forensic data I’ve complied proves that. That should be enough.
Deaver: But it isn’t enough.
Booth: Okay that’s…that’s great. We’ll uh, take that under consideration, thanks.
(Deaver and Levitt leave the room.)
Bones: Why didn’t she say anything about you? You can be very irritating sometimes.
Booth: Bones, she’s an expert just like you. She has an obvious personality disorder but she wants to help. Just try.
Bones: Okay, sure.
Booth: Good.
Bones: I can do it.
[Cut to: United States District Court. Day. Mary and Scott are sitting at the defense table with Neil Meredith, their attorney and Michael is seated behind them in the courtroom. Levitt is the prosecutor and Bones and Booth sit behind him. This scene flashes between the two attorneys giving their opening statements.]
(Bones is dressed in a black suit with a bright blue and white pinstriped shirt. She looks over at the defense table and smiles. Levitt stands up and approaches the jury.)
Levitt: We will show that Mary Costello lured Maggie Schilling into her home with the promise of drugs.
Meredith: She was not held against her will. She was in fact orchestrating the plot to extort money from her own parents from whom she was estranged.
Levitt: They bound her for weeks, the pain growing, and to keep her quiet they pumped her full of drugs.
Meredith: Her death was the result of a self-administered overdose.
Levitt: After killing their captive and ruining their chances of collecting the ransom, the Costello’s stuffed Miss. Schilling’s body into the refrigerator.
Meredith: Knowing they could be accused of kidnapping and murder, my clients panicked and disposed of her body while their behavior might be ill advised they are neither kidnappers nor murderers.
[Fade to: Booth is on the stand now answering questions.]
Booth: The pharmaceutical samples of hydromorphone were found in the Costello’s belongings. The lot numbers matched those that were in Dr. Barragan’s office. When I went to the Costello’s kitchen I saw the marks from the old refrigerator on the floor. It was like these marks, they screamed at me, these people, they did it.
(The jury is listening intently to Booth.)
Meredith: Objection.
Judge: Sustained, just the facts Agent Booth.
Booth: Sorry, it was just that the receipt for the new refrigerator was dated two days after the negotiations broke off with the kidnappers. I mean you figure it out. (the prosecutor goes to object.) I know, I’m sorry.
Meredith: (to Booth) Any evidence Maggie Schilling wasn’t a willing participant in sexual activity involving those cuffs and other paraphernalia?
Booth: Well winding up in the fridge kind of tells me that she really wasn’t that into it.
Meredith: Your honor?
Booth: No direct evidence.
Meredith: Any evidence my clients forced Miss. Schilling to take that narcotic.
Booth: I’ll leave those answers for the experts.
(Fade to: Hodgins on the stand answering questions.)
Hodgins: Scarids ah, also known as dark-winged fungus gnats went through several life cycles also present were acatadye and notadye but the most interesting find was not a bug at all but was common bread mold. All this data led to the same conclusion, Maggie Schilling was in that refrigerator between ten and twelve months.
[Fade to: Angela on stand.]
Angela: Even though we already had medical records and dental records from which to identify Maggie Schilling, I was also asked to do a sketch based on the architecture of her skull. That’s sort of what I do. (She holds up the picture she sketched for the jury to see.) It turned out pretty accurate if I do say so myself. She was a pretty girl, that’s why I drew her smiling. It… (sighs) it just seemed right. I’m really sorry for what happened to her but I hope my work helps you.
[Fade to: Bones on stand]
Bones: The gelatinous puddle was decomposed tissue from which our lab extracted and analyzed liver and kidney samples by mass spectrometer. (The jury is looking bored and like they’re not listening to her.) The hydromorphone level in her liver was 8.4 and 6.6 in her kidney. Death occurs at 7.7 and 5.2 respectively.
Levitt: And the reason they would be giving the victim this narcotic?
Bones: Short-term periosteal reaction on the right proximal lateral humerus (Michael hangs his head down knowing that she is failing at her testimony) was consistent with a bound individual.
Levitt: So to rephrase…
Bones: And the placement of wrist restraints coupled with her hyperparathyroidism would account for the stress fractures on the distal anterior surface of both the radi and ulni. (one jury member is rubbing their temples.)
Levitt: Her bones broke because she was struggling to free herself?
Bones: Yeah, I believe I just said that.
(Deaver rolls her eyes in the audience and leans over and whispers something to Booth.)
Levitt: Thank you, doctor. That will be all for now. (to Judge) I would like to move for a recess with the right to recall the witness, your honor?
Judge: Okay, we’ll meet back here in thirty minutes.
Deaver: (to Booth) She can’t connect. Those killers are going to walk.
[Cut to: Court hallway area. Booth and Bones are walking away from the courtroom talking.]
Bones: It was well reasoned.
Booth: Yeah it was, um, very scientific.
(The walk almost into Deaver and Levitt)
Dever: You didn’t listen to a thing I said. You were like Klaatu the robot up there. Would it have killed you to speak English?
Bones: I wore blue. I looked at the jury.
Booth: (to Deaver) You know for a people person, you’re a little rude.
Bones: Well at what point did the facts stop working for you?
Deaver: I have no problem with the facts as long as the jury can understand them.
Bones: Well, you’re underestimating their intelligence.
Deaver: You’re overestimating their ability to stay awake. When these S&M perverts walk on this, it’ll be on your head.
(Deaver and Levitt walk away and Bones turns to Booth.)
Bones: Can you believe that!?
(Booth looks uncomfortable.)
Bones: What? You agree with her?
Booth: Uh, not entirely.
Bones: Not entirely, so that means partly. Well I was perfectly clear. Didn’t you think I was clear?
Booth: Sometimes and um, sometimes you were… a little hard to follow.
Bones: What are you talking about? When?
Booth: When you were…talking. Listen Bones, I know you care about this case but I think you should let them see that.
Bones: So I should perform.
Booth: Just a little bit. Yeah I mean. Do you see how I portrayed myself as a no nonsense, tough guy, cop?
Bones: You are a no nonsense, tough guy, cop.
Booth: (snaps his fingers) Exactly and I think that it wouldn’t hurt if the jury saw who you really are.
Bones: Well I don’t know who you think that is Booth because this is who I really am…Just this.
(Booth moans and she walks away. She almost runs into Michael.)
Bones: God, sorry.
Michael: I’m okay, are you?
Bones: Sure. (sighs) Well truthfully this whole thing is pretty awkward. Don’t you think?
Michael: We’re just doing our job. We’ll be fine.
Bones: It’s just they have this jury consultant. They want to turn this into a melodrama. They don’t understand what a scientist is.
Michael: Tempe, we’re not allowed to talk about the case.
Bones: I know. I’m just saying…
Michael: My guy is going to freak if he sees us talking.
Bones: Sure, sorry.
[Cut to: Courtroom. Michael is on the stand.]
Michael: In my opinion the high levels of hydromorphone are more consistent with recreational use then for pain relief.
Meredith: (gestures to jury) Could you explain?
Michael: Well I might not use all the technical language but I’ll try to make myself understood. (the jurors smile at him.)
Levitt: Objection your honor. The witness is impuning another witness.
Judge: Sustained, continue.
Michael: I’m sorry. I uh, I don’t do this professionally. (to jury) People who need to relieve physical pain will stop after the pain disappears. It doesn’t take more then an average dose to accomplish that. Drug users are trying to bury emotional pain which means they’ll medicate until they feel nothing. This is why they have a tendency to overdose like Maggie Schilling.
(Bones leans up and whispers to Levitz)
Bones: That’s not accurate sometimes chronic pain does not respond to medication.
Levitt: I’ll bring it up on cross examination.
Meredith: What about Dr. Brennan’s claim that her pain was somehow connected to the victim being bound for a length of time?
Michael: Well, the Costello’s have already stipulated to the fact that they bound Miss. Schilling as a part of their rather unorthodox sexual act and Dr. Brennan agrees that Miss. Schilling had hyperpara…well if I could simplify, a thyroid condition that can weaken her bones. No need to look for bondage scenarios.
Bones: (leans over and whispers to Booth) That is ridiculous. He’s ignoring all the facts.
Michael: With respect to my former student, Dr. Brennan. With findings like these I don’t know why she became a Forensic Anthropologist. She seems to have ignored all but her pre-conceived notions about the case.
Levitt: Objection.
Judge: Sustained.
Michael: I apologize.
Meredith: Do you disagree with Dr. Brennan’s data?
Michael: Well, sometimes doctors can use data to confuse a very simple situation. I mean I’m a doctor and I could hardly follow her. (a juror smiles at him.) This case is about people, not incomprehensible technical jargon. I don’t think that these people should be convicted of murder just because Dr. Brennan sounds smart.
Levitt: Your honor, really.
Judge: The jury will disregard Professor Stires’ personal view of Dr. Brennan. The court will adjourn until 9am tomorrow.
Booth: (leans over and whispers to Bones) Listen, don’t worry about a thing, okay?
[Cut to: Court hallway. Levitz, Deaver, Bones, and Booth are talking.]
Bones: He wasn’t acting as an objective expert. He was making up a story.
Levitt: The judge chastised him in front of the jury that will work for us.
Deaver: The hell it will. The jury loves Stires. He looks like a regular guy who’s not allowed to speak the truth because the stupid rules get in the way.
Bones: The rules of jurist prudence aren’t stupid.
Deaver: Dr. Brennan you need to learn the difference between reality and perception. A trial is all about perception.
Bones: Wow, you’re the reason civilization is declining.
Deaver: (to Booth) Talk to her.
Booth: I kind of agree with her.
(Deaver walks off angry.)
Bones: Thanks.
Booth: You know I really don’t agree with you. I just…I don’t like her.
Bones: (to Levitt) Put me back on the stand I can rebut everything that Michael said.
Booth: She can do this.
Levitt: I’ll think about it. (walks away.)
Bones: (to Booth) I’ve never been in this position before Booth. I need to get back up there.
Booth: Alright, just let me talk to him. (he leaves.)
[Cut to: Bones’ office. Bones is looking at some papers and Dr. Goodman approaches her.]
Dr. Goodman: Trial going badly? You don’t usually cram at the last minute.
Bones: The jury likes Michael better then they like me, apparently that’s a problem. (Dr. Goodman sits.) Are they stupid?
Dr. Goodman: Compared to you, yes they are stupid. However, compared to you most of the world is a little stupid. You have many skills Temperance. Not one of them includes communicating with the average person on the street which is exactly what juries are made of.
Bones: I’m a better Forensic Anthropologist then Michael Stires.
Dr. Goodman: Which is why two years ago I hired you instead of him.
Bones: (shocked) Michael applied for this job?
Dr. Goodman: Yes.
Bones: His credentials are better then mine.
Dr. Goodman: Yes but you are the more rational reasoned empirical scientist and you care and if he tries to convince you otherwise, tell him to go to hell. (he gets up and leaves.)
[Cut to: Courtroom hallway. Day. Bones is looking at a file and Michael comes up to her.]
Michael: Is it safe to approach, Dr. Brennan?
Bones: Don’t charm Michael.
Michael: I think you’re taking this too personally.
Bones: You think I should be more rational?
Michael: Yes.
Bones: Go to hell.
Michael: Look, you’re not the only one with a jury consultant. The difference is that I listened to mine. He told me to create reasonable doubt, that’s what I did.
Bones: This one isn’t about winning a pasta dinner or showing up your former student. It’s about putting two people away who murdered a nineteen year old girl.
Michael: Tempe, you can’t personalize the work.
Bones: Do you remember in Central America standing in a mass grave being guarded by soldiers? We knew that they were probably the same soldiers who had killed the people we were digging up. I was just a student. I was scared. I turned to you and asked ‘what do we do?’
Michael: That was a different place and a radically different context.
Bones: You said we tell the truth. We do not flinch. You flinched, Michael. (she walks away.)
[Cut to: Courtroom. Booth is talking to Levitt while Deaver is listening.]
Levitt: I can’t ask her that. That whole line of questioning isn’t relevant.
Booth: He brought it up during his testimony so legally you can reintroduce it.
Levitt: How is that going to change anything?
Booth: Trust me, it will.
(Bones walks up to them.)
Bones: Am I testifying?
[Fade to: Bones on the stand. There are pictures of Maggie as well as x-rays on a board next to the stand.]
Bones: Only a prolonged struggle not sexual activity would cause the tearing on the medial head of the gastric nemius muscle on the distal portion of the bone and…
Levitt: So in lay terms?
Bones: The muscle avulsed.
Levitt: (to jury) She pulled a muscle?
Bones: Because she was immobilized.
Levitt: Tied up?
Bones: Yes, these conditions have to be contextualized. The inflammation on the ileum...
( The sound fades a little so you can barely hear her and the camera pans the jury showing them all disinterested and bored. Levitt scans the crowd and Booth gives him a nod. He turns around and faces Bones.)
Levitt: Dr. Brennan, why’d you become a Forensic Anthropologist?
Bones: I beg your pardon?
Levitt: There must be some reason you chose this field out of the hundred of other careers someone of your intelligence could have chosen. Was there some emotional reason, perhaps?
Meredith: Objection. Relevance, you honor?
Bones: I don’t see how this pertains to the case.
Levitt: Dr. Brennan is cold distant and alienating your honor.
Bones: Hey!
Levitt: I need the jury to understand why she’s so cold so that they might be willing to accept her testimony.
Meredith: Her personality issues are not relevant to this case.
Levitt: They opened up this line of questioning, your honor. When Dr. Stires was on the stand, he wondered why Dr. Brennan became a Forensic Anthropologist so the defense must have thought it had some relevance then.
Judge: Sorry, Mr. Meredith you did raise the issue. Over ruled. You may continue Mr. Levitt.
Levitt: Dr. Brennan, your parents disappeared when you were fifteen and no one’s ever found out whatever happened to them. Is that correct?
(Bones looks at Booth pissed)
Judge: Please answer the question, Dr. Brennan.
Bones: That’s correct.
Levitt: It must be very painful. Is it fair to say that you’ve been trying to solve the mystery of their loss your whole life?
Bones: Do I want answers? Yes. As how that is affecting my behavior which I assume is what you are trolling for? I don’t put much stock in Psychology.
Levitt: Is that why you wrap yourself up in techno-speak so you don’t have to feel how these victims’s remind you of your parents.
Bones: How I feel doesn’t matter. My job doesn’t depend on it.
Levitt: But it’s informed by it. Are you as cold and unfeeling as you seem?
Bones: I see a face on every skull. I can look at their bones and tell you how they walked, where they hurt. Maggie Schilling is real to me. The pain she suffered was real. Her hip was being eaten away by infection from lying on her side. Sure like Dr. Stires said the disease could contribute to that if you take it out of context but you can’t break Maggie Schilling down into little pieces. (the jury is really listening to her now.) She was a whole person who fought to free herself. Her wrists were broken from struggling against the handcuffs. The bones in her ankles were ground together because her feet were tied and her side, her hip, and her shoulder were being eaten away by infection and the more she struggled, the more pain she was in so they gave her those drugs to keep her quiet. They gave her so much it killed her. (to jury) These facts can’t be ignored or dismissed because you think I’m …uh, boring or obnoxious because I don’t matter. What I feel doesn’t matter. Only she matters, only Maggie.
[Bones storms out of the courtroom and Michael is following her.]
Michael: Tempe! Tempe! Tempe, I’m sorry. What can I do?
(Bones stops and faces him then turns away and continues walking. Booth comes running out.)
Booth: Bones, (snaps) the Costello’s are trying to cop to a plea to a charge that won’t mean the death penalty. They know they’re going down.
Bones: (angry) You had no right. There are things that are private.
Booth: Yeah, maybe you’re right but you know what this was my case too. Alright, so nothing personal?
[Cut to: Bones’ office. Bones is looking at a picture of her and Michael and Angela enters her office.]
Angela: Guilty on all counts.
Bones: Yeah.
Angela: So he owes you another dinner, huh?
Bones: No, I won’t be seeing him anymore.
Angela: Sorry.
Bones: I was foolish to be so open with him. It was irrational. You know how you get when you’re tired?
Angela: Yeah. You want to go out? Grab a drink?
Bones: Um, I think I just want to work.
Angela: Okay. (leaves)
(Booth enters the Office.)
Booth: Hey Bones.
Bones: What is it? I’m not feeling very forgiving.
Booth: Yeah I know but uh, we have a case. (smiles at her.)
[Cut to: Night. Booth and Bones are standing on some kind of platform. It’s really windy out. Bones is examining the remains and Booth is taking notes.]
Bones: The victim is an adult male, thirty-five to forty years old. From the pattern of the burning, I would say an accelerant was used. Could you hand me my bag?
Booth: Yeah sure, hey listen you want my coat or something? It’s cold up here.
Bones: If I did, I would ask for it.
Booth: Yeah, sorry and um, I’m sorry.
Bones: You had something to accomplish and you found a logical way of getting what you needed. I probably would have done the same thing. (She smiles at Booth and he smiles back.)
[The camera pulls back to reveal that they are on a schapolding against the Washington Monument about half way up.]
Fade to Black.
