[Int. Open. Lab. Winter Wonderland is the opening music. There are Christmas decorations mixed in with beakers and other lab supplies. Date on screen: December 23, 6pm.]
(Angela is chasing after Bones through the lab.)
Angela: Sweetie?
Bones: Angela, I don’t want to.
(Bones steps up into the platform area.)
Angela: Sweetie, could you stop galloping for like two seconds?
Bones: Better able to withstand peer pressure when you can’t catch me.
Angela: Call it a favor, okay?
Bones: How does me going to a company Christmas party doing you a favor?
Angela: Remember what happened last year?
Bones: I didn’t go last year.
(Bones grabs some rubber gloves and puts them on. She starts to examine a skull sitting on a lab table.)
Angela: Yeah exactly and it took me weeks to collect all the photo copies. I need you. Friends don’t let friends photocopy their butts at company Christmas parties. Hey, there’s a secret Santa.
Bones: I don’t like secret Santa. The idea that we are forced by convention to exchange meaningless gifts is…
Angela: Yeah, yeah, yeah I know. If you rearrange secret Santa though, you get secret Satan.
Bones: What possible meaning could that have?
Angela: I’ve already had an eggnog if you can’t tell. Now how am I going to enjoy this party knowing that my best friend in the whole world is in the lab, eyeball to eyeball, with Skeletor?
Bones: Who?
Angela: He’s a cartoon villain who looks like…you know his name is self-explanatory. Would you please just come to this party?
Bones: (exhales) Twenty minutes.
(Booth enters the lab carrying a suitcase of some sort.)
Booth: Bones, alright.
Angela: Merry Christmas Seeley.
Booth: Ooh wow. (sets suitcase on a table with file on top.) Whoo. What are you an elf?
Angela: Yes. What’s wrong with a little Christmas spirit?
Bones: (picks up the file) What’s the context?
Booth: Ah, Federal property on Dupont Circle where congress put up a visiting agricultural specialist or something like that. They’re digging to put in a solarium and they find a fall out shelter with a skeleton inside. Huh?
Angela: How long was it in there?
Booth: The shelter was built in the fifties, part of that whole A bomb panic.
Bones: It’s not a suicide.
Booth: Why not? A bullet in the head, you see the gun, it’s a suicide.
Bones: He shoots himself in the head and somehow his arm ends up across his chest. Bring the skeleton in and I will prove it wasn’t a suicide.
Booth: Merry Christmas, Bones. (turns and whistles) C’mon boys, bring it in.
Angela: Oh no. We’re going to the company Christmas party.
(Booth takes the suitcase off the table and help the guys put a body bag on it.)
Bones: You go ahead. I’ll do a cursory examination and I’ll meet you in a few minutes.
Booth: All right. There ya go. Wow.
Bones: Booth, Will you escort Angela to the Christmas party and make sure she doesn’t photocopy her butt?
Booth: Oh, no, no I can’t do that. You see I got some really last minute important Christmas shopping that I gotta do.
Angela: It’s not last minute until tomorrow.
Booth: C’mon Bones. Bones, just…(Angela drags him away by the arm.)I gotta …geesh.
[Cut to: Zach in the lab playing with a mini robot he made. Hodgins is watching him.]
Zach: Stop!. (the robot does a roll) Stop! (it keeps rolling.) Turn. (the robot stops)
Hodgins: (laughs) Your robot reminds me of you. You tell it to turn it stops. You tell it to stop it turns. You ask it to take out the garbage it watches reruns of firefly.
Zach: After I fix the voice recognition protocols, this is going to blow those gomers at MIT away.
(Hodgins walks over to a home made brewery system they built and picks up a beaker of clear liquid.)
Hodgins: Yeah we got about half a liter of pure alcohol here. Dump it in the eggnog and we’ve got the best Christmas party in history.
[Cut to: Bones looking at the body on a table. Switch to Zach plucking some green matter off of a leg bone. Hodgins walks over to Zach carrying a glass cup and he has antlers on his head.]
Hodgins: I brought an eggnog.
Zach: I can’t drink while I work.
Hodgins: Good thing I didn’t bring it for you.
Zach: Crystal in accounting is after you, isn’t she?
Hodgins: Oh, like the Alien after Predator. (yells to robot) Sit!
(The robot takes off running across the counter and crashes to the floor.)
[Cut to: Bones looking through the pockets of the coat from the body. Booth walks in.)
Booth: What do you got there?
Bones: Two open tickets to Paris, one way, Pan Transit airlines. They’re blank.
Booth: Pan Transit went out of business in the sixties.
Bones: I thought that you were at the party.
Booth: Oh, that wasn’t a party that was a Star Wars convention.
(Bones leans over and picks up a flattened bullet with her tweezers then holds it up for Booth to look at.)
Bones: This was still in the skull.
Booth: (whistles) Twenty-two caliber matches the gun he was holding. Did you open up the suitcase?
Bones: Nope.
Booth: Why not?
Bones: It could hold information that would compromise my objectivity.
Booth: Oh yeah like a name and address?
Bones: I prefer to make unbiased initial observations.
(Bones looks up and notices Hodgins and Zach up on the balcony. Hodgins is carrying the beaker.)
Bones: Is that pure alcohol?
Zach: Yes, Dr. Brennan.
(Hodgins gives Zach a look.)
Bones: You really think Goodman is going to let you spike the eggnog after the Fourth of July fiasco?
Hodgins: Uh, we may have to rethink.
Bones: Zach, I need you to clean these bones.
Zach: Now?
Hodgins: (laughs) Burn.
Bones: (to Hodgins) And I need you to search the clothing for insect evidence.
Booth: Jeeze Bones, Merry Christmas.
(Angela comes in. She has her elf hat on and her elf suit with pointy elf shoes.)
Angela: Okay you people listen to me. There is a party going on upstairs okay? A Christmas party. We’re going up there. We’re going to talk to some people. We’re going to sing some carols. We’re going to drink some eggnog. (to Booth) You are going to kiss me under the mistletoe on the lips. (to Zach and Hodgins) I might kiss you guys under the mistletoe too. (to Bones) Maybe even you in a festive non-lesbian manner but we are going to that party.
[Cut to: Lab. Zach has a handheld circular saw. He’s going to cut the leg bone off the skeleton. Hodgins is with him holding his eggnog.]
Zach: Put on a mask I’m going to take a couple of core samples.
Hodgins: Okay.
(He starts to cut and Hodgins removes his mask to take a sip of his eggnog. An alarm goes off. They both take off running to the decontamination shower getting inside together. The others in the lab look around and hear the alarm.)
Booth: What’s that?
(Zach and Hodgins are fighting each other to get in.)
Hodgins: Zach. Zach. (yells so everyone can hear him) Zach!
Dr. Goodman: Biological contamination.
(Booth runs for the door but they shut too soon and he can’t pry them open)
Booth: Whoa, whoa.
Angela: The doors seal automatically. Don’t worry about it.
Booth: What do you mean don’t worry about it?
Bones: There’s no use panicking until we know what it is.
Booth: What, what is?
(Hodgins and Zach walk up wet and with towels around their waists.)
Hodgins: Uh, we might.
Zach: I cut into the fallout shelter bones and the biohazard alarm went off.
Dr. Goodman: Were you conforming to autopsy protocol
Zach: One of us was.
Hodgins: The other was drinking and eggnog.
Dr. Goodman: And you didn’t have your mask on? Oooh.
[Cut to: An area of the lab where there is a computer screen and couches. The group and Booth are in the room looking at the screen. On the screen is a head guy of the Jeffersonian in a Santa suit talking to them.]
Guy on screen: The pathogen is coccidiomyosis.
Dr. Goodman: Valley fever?
Guy: It was picked up in the scanner in the discharge vent at Mr. Addy’s station.
Booth: What’s Valley fever?
Zach: It’s a fungus that can lead to pneumonia, meningitis, spontaneous abortion, death.
Dr. Goodman: The alarm sounded shortly after Mr. Addy cut into a human bone. That must have been the source.
Guy: Was he following autopsy protocol?
Bones: Of course. However…
Hodgins: I was drinking an eggnog.
Guy: (pulls down his beard to talk) And now he’s there with you breathing the same air.
Hodgins: Hey, I got into the decontamination shower with Zach haven’t I been through enough hell?
Booth: Is he contagious?
Guy: Dr. Hodgins may have inhaled the spores, yes.
Booth: Okay it must suck to be Hodgins right now but the rest of us; we didn’t inhale so it’s okay that I go, right?
Dr. Goodman: Dr. Hodgins may have exhaled the spores all over us.
Guy: We have no choice but to impose quarantine. Valley fever can be fatal and we can’t risk impendent. Just calm down and let us handle things from this side.
Booth: Anyone besides me worried that a guy dressed like Santa is in charge?
Guy: Merry Christmas. (he shuts off his connection.)
Booth: Ok, you know what; if this is fatal I will shoot both of you.
Angela: Maybe you guys could go get dressed.
(Zach and Hodgins get up to go get dressed. The rest look at each other frustrated.)
[Intro. Rolls]
[Cut to: Lab platform. Zach and Bones are standing over a body encased in glass]
Zach: I zapped the bones with ultraviolet light and arranged them on the isolation table so we don’t have to worry about spores. In addition I found this sewn into the lining of his clothing. (hands Bones a clear baggie with a band in it.)
Bones: A woman’s wedding band.
Zach: Two tickets to Paris, a woman’s wedding band, a picture begins to form.
Bones: We don’t form pictures, we accumulate evidence. Dental work?
Zach: Acrylic resins in the interior fillings from the 1940s. Childhood tibia break, bad enough that he walked with a limp. Also he wore a toupee.
Bones: It doesn’t seem to have degraded.
Zach: It’s made of a synthetic called dinel. It couldn’t have looked good.
[Cut to: Lab room. The team is lined up along with booth. A guy in a Hazmat suit is showing them shots they have to have.]
Agent: This is a cocktail of four anti fungal drugs including amphotericin B. Orally you will be taking ketoconazone, fluconazone, and hydroclonazone.
Booth: That’s great then we can leave.
Agent: We won’t know for a couple of days if the fungus took hold in your system.
Booth: Whoa, whoa, whoa. You’re saying that we’re stuck here over Christmas. Look, you know I have places to go. You know I have obligations.
(The team is all lined up with their pants slightly dropped. A hazmat guy gives Booth a shot in the butt and he’s got red Christmas boxers on.)
Dr. Goodman: We all have obligations.
Hodgins: I’m supposed to go to Quebec.
Angela: Hey, whose fault is this?
Hodgins: Who forced me to go to the party where I drank too much and had to hide from Crystal?
Angela: Who never should have cut into a bone with a drunken fool in the room?
Zach: Who brought us human remains just to ditch a little paper work?
Booth: Oh, wait, you’re saying this is my fault.
Dr. Goodman: You knew Dr. Brennan could not resist.
Bones: Well I would have been able to resist if I was in Niger where I wanted to be.
Dr. Goodman: You’re blaming me.
Guy: Ladies and gentleman we’ll have sleeping bags delivered. Please have your loved ones call me and we’ll set up some kind of safe quarantine visit on Christmas Day. Oh and be prepared for side effects.
Bones: Nausea, fever, insomnia…
Guy: In very rare cases…euphoria, dream state, mild hallucinations.
Angela: I’ll take that please.
Guy: Early symptoms mimic a common cold.
Dr. Goodman: What if it manifests?
Zach: First treatment protocol involves extremely painful injections into the base of the brain.
Booth: (looking at the decorations.) You know what? I never realized how pretty all this shiny stuff is.
Hodgins: That is so not fair.
[Cut to: Hodgins and Zach are in sleeping bags on tables talking.]
Hodgins: Tomorrow I was supposed to leave for Quebec. You want to know the true meaning of Christmas? It’s being inside a three hundred year old inn with a French Canadian masseuse when there’s ten feet of snow outside.
Zach: Christmas is going home to Michigan and heading into the woods with your brothers to cut a twelve foot Christmas tree and you all decorate it together…brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews. Forty people who all love you and are happy to see you. That my friend is the true meaning of Christmas.
Hodgins: Nah, I’m going to have to go with the masseuse on this one.
(Hodgins rolls over on his side to sleep)
[Cut to: Booth on the floor in a sleeping bag next to a couch that Dr. Goodman is on in a sleeping bag. They are talking to each other.]
Booth: What are those little tiny lights dancing on the ceiling?
Dr. Goodman: For the third time, those are minute firings of neurons on your optic nerve due to your reaction to the anti-fungal cocktail.
Booth: Wow, whoa. They’re beautiful.
Dr. Goodman: (laughs) You are stoned, Agent Booth.
Booth: (laughs) Oh, good. Let’s hope it lasts long enough to keep this from being the worst Christmas of my life.
Dr. Goodman: What are you complaining about? I don’t like to boast but I am the spirit of Christmas in my house. (pulls out his wallet) I have a wife and twin five year old daughters. (hands booth the picture) We have family traditions. The most important of which is being together for Christmas.
Booth: Wow, they’re beautiful. Yep, I have a kid too. (pulls out a picture) His name is Parker. He’s four years old. (hands picture to Goodman) His mother wouldn’t marry me so my parental rights are totally…
Dr. Goodman: Vague?
Booth: That words just a little more Christmasier then what I was thinking.
Dr. Goodman: He’s a fine looking boy.(hands the picture back to him.)
Booth: Yeah I get him part of Christmas Day. I get him an excellent present every year something really cool but this uh, this year…
Dr. Goodman: Yes, this year.
Booth: What are those little lights on the ceiling again?
[Cut to: Angela and Brennan lying in sleeping bags on the floor in another part of the lab.]
Angela: I know it’s against your nature but I need your help.
Bones: For what?
Angela: To make Christmas.
Bones: Why because we’re the girls?
Angela: Yes, we have to decorate and we have to make our own secret Santa.
Bones: You called it Secret Satan before.
Angela: It’s all so tragic. A cheap wedding ring sewn into his suit, two tickets to Paris, it makes you wonder who was the girl. Can you imagine what it was like for her, waiting and wondering never knowing what happened?
Bones: I don’t have to imagine.
Angela: What do you mean?
Bones: I tell you what I’m going to do for Christmas.
Angela: Good, thank you. At last you decided to take part.
Bones: (gets up) I’m going to solve a murder.
[Cut to: Bones is on the platform with some pictures in front of her. She’s looking at something under a microscope. Booth jumps up behind her with his hands in the air. She doesn’t notice him at first. He jumps again.]
Booth: Bones, it’s after midnight. Hm? Christmas Eve day. Both and Eve and a day it’s a Christmas miracle.
Bones: Still enjoying your medication I see.
(He comes up to join her when she doesn’t stop what she’s doing. He plops down on the stool next to her with Angela’s elf hat on and his T-shirt and pants.]
Booth: Okay so what are we looking at?
Bones: There are traces of lead and nickel in the dead guy’s osteological profile.
Booth: You don’t seem too upset about missing Christmas.
Bones: Indications are that Christ if he existed was born in late spring and the celebration of his birth was shifted to coincide with the pagan right of the winter solace so that early Christians weren’t persecuted.
Booth: Hm. Who are you like the Christmas killer?
Bones: It’s the truth.
Booth: No it sounds like the truth because it’s so rational, right? But the… you know, the true truth is you hate Christmas so you just spout out all these facts and you ruin it for everyone else.
Bones: I ruin the true truth with facts?
Booth: Yeah and you ruin it for the squint squad too by making them work on a case about a guy who’s been sealed up in a fallout shelter for fifty years.
Bones: Well how would you like me to spend my Christmas?
Booth: (leans in close to her) Christmas is the perfect time to reexamine your standing with…you know (points up)
Bones: A helicopter pad?
Booth: Oh, right, right you can’t measure the man upstairs in the beaker so he can’t possibly exist.
Bones: The man upstairs?
Booth: Mm. You know you don’t know if you’re sick but your more then willing to take drugs just in case. Seems to me you could give the man upstairs the same benefit of the doubt that you do an invisible fungus. Hm.
(The stare at each other for a moment and Booth walks away.)
[Cut to: Lab. Booth is doing pull ups on a bar. Hodgins and Zach are coming down the stairs.]
Zach: In some cases of Valley fever skin lesions appear.
Hodgins: Will someone in a position of responsibility please order Zach to shut up.
(They walk over to Dr. Goodman who is getting coffee off of a push cart. The cart has bagels, orange juice, and various breakfast items on it. Booth drops down and joins them.)
Angela: Coffee, Coffee.
Dr. Goodman: Good morning Miss. Montenegro.
Angela: Where did this come from?
Dr. Goodman: Uh, Hazmat team brought it over this morning, very appetizing. (to Booth) Are you back with us?
Booth: Yeah, I think so.
Angela: Hey since we are going to be stuck together for Christmas we should make the most of it.
Booth: Oh.
Angela: We’ll decorate this place and exchange handmade gifts.
Dr. Goodman: An excellent idea Miss. Montenegro.
Zach: I can get behind that.
Hodgins: I’m in.
Dr. Goodman: As am I.
Booth: How about Bones?
(They all grunt, look down, and say uh uh.)
Booth: Okay come on. What’s the deal with Bones and Christmas?
Angela: Last night I spun a little story about two young lovers running off to Paris but the man never shows up and the woman is left wondering what has happened to him and I say imagine what that must have been like and Brennan says I don’t have to.
Booth: Yeah, I…I still don’t get it.
Dr. Goodman: Oh my God.
Booth: What?
Angela: Brennan’s parents disappear just before Christmas when she was fifteen.
Dr. Goodman: And she never knew what happened to them.
Booth: Oh God that explains a lot.
Dr. Goodman: Yeah
Hodgins: Mm. Yeah.
Angela: Alright we need a way to choose our secret Santa’s.
Zach: I could build a random generator.
Dr. Goodman: Wouldn’t it be better to match complimentary people in a premeditated manner.
(Booth looks at Angela and she smiles.)
Hodgins: I’ve got five numbers in my head and five letters. You tell me the number and I’ll tell you the matching letter.
(Booth grabs a canister from Angela then pulls out a paper and pencil. He starts writing their names on the paper while they are debating the best way to pick Santa’s.)
Dr. Goodman: Are the letter sequential or are the numbers sequential?
Hodgins: Sequential will go in order oldest to youngest.
(Booth is placing the papers in the canister.)
Zach: six.
Hodgins: There’s no six.
Dr. Goodman: A through E and 1 through 5?
Booth: (grunts and holds the canister out in front of them.) Just pick a name and if you get your own put it back in.
Dr. Goodman: Oh. That could work.
Hodgins: Yeah that’s good.
Angela: Good idea.
[Cut to: Booth is following Bones on the upper level of the lab.]
Booth: The feds seized the house from a man named Gill Atkins in the sixties, proceeds of crime from fencing, dealing with jewels, stolen art. Atkins built the fallout shelter in 51; he sealed it in 58, died in 83. What do you got?
Bones: Ah, nothing much special about our victim. Do you know about the toupee? Below average height, below average weight, frail. Had a bad back, he had a hunch maybe from paperwork.
Booth: Ah, so basically a wimp.
Bones: (hands Booth a paper) Contents of his pockets.
Booth: Compass, pen knife, some change. Listen, I got Goodman for this secret Santa thing and I don’t know.
Bones: Anthropologically speaking gifts are a way of asserting dominance in a group. Now imagine an entire holiday devoted to self promotion especially in this materialistic culture. How can you expect me to get behind that? How can you get behind that?
(She stops walking and turns to face him.)
Booth: Wow, that’s…that’s deep. It’s a very deep pile of crap.
Bones: You came to me with information this morning, a peace offering but it was to make you feel better not me, proves my point. (points to picture) Any idea what this is?
Booth: No. (hands picture back to her)
Bones: Me neither, try Dr. Goodman.
Booth: You know Bones you make it very very hard for me to be nice to you.
[Cut to: A lab room. There are assorted beakers and test tubes on a table with chemicals. Zach, Angela, Hodgins, and Dr. Goodman are looking through it.]
Angela: We have to be extremely creative.
Hodgins: Maybe string a bunch of test tubes together and fill them with luminescent liquids.
Angela: Nice very festive.
Zach: They’ll probably give us cancer.
Dr. Goodman: That would be fitting this Christmas.
Angela: Tidings of joy, gentleman. Tidings of joy.
Dr. Goodman: Decorations do not a Christmas make, family and friends make Christmas.
Hodgins: We’re friends. (Dr. Goodman just looks at him.) We’re not friends?
Dr. Goodman: We are colleagues, friends, co-workers, yes but for a father like myself, like Agent Booth, a few glowing test tubes don’t make up for missing Christmas morning with the children.
Angela: Excuse me?
Zach: Be kind, rewind.
Hodgins: Booth has a kid?
Dr. Goodman: Ah, Well um, not common knowledge I gather.
[Cut to: Lab area with the boxes on the wall. Dr. Goodman walks up to Booth who is looking at the bones and things they found with the body on a lighted table.]
Dr. Goodman: I uh, see you’ve decided to help Dr. Brennan with your case.
Booth: Ah, you know if Angela’s right sure why not. Do something for Bones. Call it Christmas spirit.
Dr. Goodman: My thoughts exactly. Um, I thought I might uh; take a look at the contents of the suitcase with you.
Booth: Why?
Dr. Goodman: Beats cobbling together Christmas decorations out of pipettes and graduated cylinders.
Booth: I mean what makes you qualified to look at clues?
Dr. Goodman: I’m an archeologist. I’m good with artifacts. Do you mind?
Booth: No, archeologists. I thought you were an administrator.
Dr. Goodman: Ah, it didn’t start out that way. He was fastidious, everything neatly folded as if though by a trained valet. This man was by no means wealthy. All the clothing is well used and mended.
Booth: (picks up a shirt) He’s got a Blackman and Ballfine tailors, Washington Dc.
Dr. Goodman: Mm.
Booth: The rest of his clothes are labeled from Tulsa, Okalahoma.
Dr. Goodman: (picks up a letter) Huh? Female handwriting.
Booth: How’d you get that?
Dr, Goodman: Having to cuneiform handwriting is a snap. Dearest Lionel.
Booth: No envelopes, no return address.
Dr. Goodman: No signature either just this drawing of a leaf. It seems to be dated from the summer of 1957 through to early winter of 1958. With your permission I will read this.
Booth: Yeah. Bones thought you might know what this is here.
(Booth points to a square empty packet on the table and his cell phone rings. He pulls it out and answers it.)
Booth: (in phone) Hey Rebecca. Yeah thanks for calling. You heard what happened right?
Dr. Goodman: It seems to be some kind of a pouch.
Booth: You don’t have to see me. Sid agreed to bring him by. Don’t make me beg. Thank you.
Dr. Goodman: Everything alright?
Booth: Yeah.
[Cut to: Balcony area. Hodgins is following Bones and they are walking.]
Hodgins: Puperia showed Lionel had Valley Fever.
Bones: We sorta knew that.
Hodgins: Wow, was that a shot because I apologized? I mean Goodman doesn’t get to see his family. Zach doesn’t get to see his family. Booth doesn’t get to see his son. At least I’m an accidental Grinch; with all due respect you’re the Grinch on purpose.
Bones: I have no idea what you are saying to me.
Hodgins: The Grinch is a relatively well known creation of a children’s author named Dr. Seuss. Listen, I got Angela for my secret Santa thing and what I want to do is blow up a microscopic imagery of a toxic mold, stachybotrys chartarum, because I know she’s interested in digital fractology. I though that might appeal to her aesthetically, do you agree?
Bones: I’m not really who you want to talk to about…Booth has a kid?
Hodgins: You didn’t know?
Bones: No.
Hodgins: I wasn’t the one who told you.
[Cut to: Booth is on the balcony talking on his cell phone with a pad in his hand. Bones is standing on the balcony also.]
Booth: (in phone) Fall of 1958, heavy weight suit, kinda small…wool, black, first name Lionel. That’s all I got. Thanks I appreciate it you know, it being Christmas Eve and all. I’ll hold. (to Bones) Lionel had a suit here made in town. It’s a tailor shop, it still exists. His grandson still owns it but get this they kept their records. We might be able to find careful Lionel lasts name.
Bones: Careful Lionel?
Booth: Yeah little guy, toupee, drank a vitamin tonic, carried his own compass, all his of stuff just so….careful Lionel. What was he so worried about?
Bones: Well considering how he ended up. Wait, you have a son?
Booth: Yeah.
Bones: You’ve never mentioned that.
Booth: Well, nothing brings people together like a Christmas lung fungus. (in phone) Yes. That’s great. When? Great, thank you. Merry Christmas. (to Bones) Lionel Little, okay he picked up his new suit on November 7th 1958. He paid cash. He was supposed to come back the next day for a shirt but get this he never showed up it was his wedding shirt.
(Bones sneezes twice)
Booth: Whoa bless you.
(She gives him a shocked look.)
Booth: Uh oh. Is that Valley Fever? Bones!?
[Cut to: Lab. The area with all the boxes in the wall. The whole group is sitting at a table talking and eating Chinese.]
Hodgins: So if Lionel was a coin collector that might explain the levels of lead and nickel in his bone.
Zach: When do they insert the needle into your brain?
Bones: I sneezed because the air is dry. It’s not Valley Fever.
Dr. Goodman: Any other symptoms, headache?
Zach: Any foul smelling pustules on your shins?
Booth: Look she sneezed twice that’s it. Did you find anything else about the letters?
Dr. Goodman: Quite a lot, yes. They are very very passionate love letters.
Booth: Careful Lionel had a girlfriend.
Dr. Goodman: The girlfriend was in trouble.
Angela: Pregnant in trouble?
Hodgins: Ooh apparently Careful Lionel wasn’t so careful.
Booth: Marry a pregnant girl in Okalahoma in the late fifties.
Dr. Goodman: Do you suppose Lionel came up here to procure an abortion?
Angela: You know what? This isn’t a very Christmas Eve type story.
Bones: Of course it is the whole Christ myth has been built upon the derails of an unwed mother.
Booth: Okay could we just stop bringing up the whole Christ myth thing? Alright, some people believe it is more then just a myth.
Bones: Well who besides you?
Dr. Goodman: That would be me Dr. Brennan. I’m a deacon at my church.
Angela: I do, Christmas and Easter anyway.
Hodgins: Although I believe organized religion is just another political movement designed to control the masses. It doesn’t mean God doesn’t love me.
Zach: Hey I’m a rationalist and purists all they way. Unless you talk to my mother then I’m Lutheran.
Bones: (clears throat) I can understand why you would be sensitive, Booth. You have a child out of wedlock.
Angela: Sweetie.
Bones: What?
(She looks at Booth and he doesn’t look happy.)
Dr. Goodman: Um, the letters displayed a combination of both block and cursive.
Angela: A combination of printing and writing?
Dr. Goodman: It would indicate she may have left school sometime in the second grade. Most white children in those days would have obtained at least an eighth grade education.
Bones: She was an African American?
Dr. Goodman: I believe so, yes.
Hodgins: Is there anyway Lionel was African American?
Bones: No, no he’s definitely Caucasian.
Angela: A white man and a pregnant black girl in 1958 Oklahoma.
Zach: That was bad.
Dr. Goodman: It was illegal.
Hodgins: In Oklahoma?
Dr. Goodman: Not just Oklahoma, here in DC.
Angela: Then why come here?
Booth: They were running away. Lionel had two tickets to Paris. I mean where else in 1958 could a white man and a black woman get married and live together.
(A man in dressed a Hazmat suit walks up to them.)
Guy: Visiting hour’s folk. Who’s first?
Dr. Goodman: Well as director of this institution, I claim that right.
Angela: Okay, brief announcement. You guys might recognize my dad but I don’t really want to talk about it so thanks. Okay that’s all.
[Cut to: Each member of the team except Bones pacing in front of the door waiting for their loved ones. Dr. Goodman’s wife and two children come in. He gets down on his knee and waves to them smiling. They each have an earpiece and microphone on the side of their heads so they can communicate to each other. Hodgin’s has a blonde woman for his visitor. He leans against the glass and kisses her. Angela’s father looks like a ZZtop member. She puts her hand to the glass against his. Zach has at least ten family members come. Booth gets on his knee and presses his hand against the glass to touch his sons. Bones watches them all from the side unnoticed and smiles then she walks away.]
[Cut to: Lab. Holograph area. Bones is staring at the hologram of the Christmas Tree Angela made. Angela enters.]
Angela: You like it?
Bones: It’s very beautiful.
Angela: It’s not done yet. We can put our presents under there and we can…you think it’s stupid?
Bones: No Ang. What were you’re Christmas plans?
(They go over and sit on a couch.)
Angela: My dad and I get together (sighs) somewhere quiet and exchange gifts just the two of us. Since I was a kid getting some time alone with my dad was always difficult. So what is it with you and gifts anyway? (Bones shrugs) I know your parents disappeared just before Christmas.
Bones: My brother Russ was nineteen and we were still in the house.
Angela: That must have been strange.
Bones: Russ found our presents in my parents room (Booth steps in the doorway unnoticed.) and Christmas Eve when I was asleep he snuck down and made Christmas trying to do the right thing for me.
Angela: Christmas for his little sister.
Bones: (teary) But when I came down and saw the lights and the presents…
Angela: You thought your parents were back.
Bones: I just expected to see them sitting there drinking their coffee watching Russ and me open our presents.
Angela: Oh my God.
(Booth looks sympathetic.)
Bones: (trying not to cry) I kinda lost it. I refused to open the presents until they came back. It was like I told Russ he wasn’t enough family for me. Before New Years he (wipes tear from her face) went out west to work and I was in the foster system.
Booth: Excuse me? We have uh, Lionel’s missing persons file.
Bones: The tree is really, really beautiful Ang. Really.
[Cut to: Booth, Bones and Dr. Goodman are all sitting next to each other on the balcony with their feet hanging over the side.]
Booth: Lionel Little was born May 19 th 1934 in Tulsa Oklahoma.
Dr. Goodman: twenty four years old.
Bones: It fits the remains.
Booth: According to the missing persons report logged by his boss in January of 1960 Lionel Little worked as a lease inspector for Silver Cloud Petroleum out of Tulsa Oklahoma.
Dr. Goodman: Basically an accountant.
Booth: Yeah. You know what? You’re right about Lionel’s coin collection. When Lionel vanished so did most of his extensive coin collection that was attached to the file.
Dr. Goodman: Did the coins ever show up?
Booth: Yeah through DC, Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania. The sales were traced to uh, a Gil Atkins. Yeah, he made out about eight thousand dollars from selling the coins.
Bones: Atkins killed Lionel for a coin collection?
Dr. Goodman: Eight thousand dollars in 1958 translates roughly to sixty-four thousand dollars.
Booth: Careful Lionel gets a young black girl pregnant. He sells his coin collection so he can move them to Paris and they can live together.
Dr. Goodman: Hm. He offers the coins for sale to Atkins. He figures it would be easier to kill the country bumpkin and steal the coins.
Booth: Oh also um, the last person to see Lionel was a woman who cleaned his office, Ivy Gillespie.
Dr. Goodman: What’s the significance of that?
Booth: This uh, does this look like an ivy leaf to you? (hands him the letter with the leaf as a signature.)
Dr. Goodman: Ivy Gillespie, race Negro.
Bones: Oh my God.
(Angela walks up to the balcony from below.)
Angela: You have to find her. Ivy.
Dr. Goodman: Ivy Gillespie might not even be alive and if she is this could be a reminder of an extremely painful time in her life. What would we accomplish?
Angela: You have to find the girl and tell her what you know. Don’t you see? You can give her the answer that you never got.
Bones: Wha…Angela.
Angela: I’m sorry sweetie but it’s true. You have a chance here.
Bones: To say what? Merry Christmas, Ivy Gillespie. Your fiancé was murdered and your life is ruined but hey at least you get to know what happened to him.
Angela: Don’t you wish somebody had said that to you?
Bones: Yes.
(Bones gets up and leaves)
[Cut to: Bones is on the phone with a notepad in front of her. She’s calling people on the list in front of her trying to find Ivy Gillespie. The following conversation is split up between several different phone calls.]
Bones: (in phone) I realize its Christmas Eve but it’s extremely important that I find Miss. Ivy Gillespie. We know that she was a cleaning lady the Silver Cloud Petroleum in 1958 and in 1959. After that we don’t know. I wouldn’t interrupt your Christmas except this is very, very important to a friend of mine. I don’t want to take time from your family but I have extremely important news for Miss. Gillespie regarding a loved one. Do you have an address or place of work or anything? I’ve made dozen of calls this evening in an effort to track this woman down and it’s that important. Assisted living? Is her last name still Gillespie? Yes, yes. Merry Christmas to you to. Hello? Yes I was wondering if you could tell me if you have any guest there first name Ivy born January 21, 1934, she’d be African American. Yes I apologize. I should have started with Merry Christmas.
(Bones seems to have finally found the right woman.)
Bones: Uh, date of birth is January 21, 1934, she’s African American. Yes, Ivy. Her name is still Gillespie. Yes if her granddaughter is right there….Yes hello I’m Dr. Temperance Brennan from the Jeffersonian Institution in DC. I have information that might be very interesting to your grandmother. I can be reached through the medical legal lab here at the Jeffersonian and tell her Merry Christmas.
(Angela is lying on the couch listening to her.)
Angela: You found Ivy Gillespie.
Bones: In an assisted living facility near Bethesda. I spoke to her granddaughter.
Angela: Thank you.
Bones: She might not get in touch with us.
Angela: She will.
Bones: Because it’s Christmas?
Angela: Yes.
[Cut to: Bones is in her office looking over some files and pictures. She picks up the small pouch and puts a penny inside it and then takes it back out. Booth walks in.]
Booth: Did you find something?
Bones: Two things that fit together.
Booth: Angela sent me. She says it’s Christmas.
Bones: Okay.
Booth: Do you still think there’s more to learn about Lionel Little and Ivy Gillespie?
Bones: There’s always more to learn. (Booth goes to leave) Hey, I’m sorry you didn’t get Christmas morning with your little boy.
Booth: Thanks.
[Cut to: Holograph lab. It’s dark.]
Angela: Okay everybody. Stand over here. Close your eyes. Open your eyes, Merry Christmas.
(The holograph of the tree appears. It looks real with lights and decorations. The presents they have made for each other sit on the platform underneath it.)
Dr. Goodman: Merry Christmas.
Hodgins: Whoa, Merry Christmas.
Dr. Goodman: Well done Miss. Montenegro.
(They all hug exchanging Merry Christmas as they do it. Bones leaves.)
[Cut to: The team, Booth, and Dr. Goodman sitting around exchanging the gifts they made for each other. Bones is not present.]
Booth: We should be drinking eggnog while doing this.
(Hodgins hands Angela a photograph he printed out. It’s a magnified picture of some spore or fungus. It’s really nice looking.)
Angela: Oh my God. It’s beautiful. What is it?
Hodgins: It’s prettier if you don’t know the details.
Dr. Goodman: It is beautiful. (he opens the box on his lap) I wonder what it is.
Angela: What’d you get?
(Dr. Goodman pulls out a bird made out of handkerchiefs by Booth. It’s really well done and pretty big too.)
Dr. Goodman: Very impressive. You made this?
Booth: Yeah.
Angela: Wow.
Dr. Goodman: Thank You.
Zach: I’m next.
Angela: It’s from me.
(He unrolls a large paper tied with red ribbon. It’s a chalk sketch of his family and him.)
Hodgins: Wow.
Zach: It’s my family. Thank you.
Angela: You’re welcome.
(Hodgins goes to open his present from Dr. Goodman. It’s all covered with shredded paper. He pulls the paper out quickly and picks up a stone with a frog on it that is colorfully painted. It’s like a stone box that you could put a couple of things in.)
Dr. Goodman: Scarabaeus Sacer.
Hodgins: A sacred scarab. That’s excellently rendered, Thank you sir.
Dr. Goodman: You’re very welcome.
(Booth is next. He has a yellow plastic box on his lap with a bow on top. He opens it to find the robot Zach built inside.)
Booth: Wow. Zach that’s uh….
Zach: Self propelled non autonomic unit.
Dr. Goodman: Well.
Hodgins: (to Booth) It’s a robot.
Zach: I thought if we get out of here in time today you could give it to your son.
Booth: (shakes his hand) Merry Christmas.
Angela: Awe Zach.
Booth: Thanks a lot.
Zach: You’re welcome.
[Cut to: Bones is in her office looking at the penny magnified on her computer screen. Booth enters.]
Booth: Listen Bones, here’s the thing. What if a gift goes both ways? What’s wrong with that?
Bones: Look at this.
Booth: Yeah it’s a penny.
Bones: It’s not just a penny, it’s a 1943 bronze one cent piece.
Booth: Look all I’m saying is maybe the real gift is when you accept something with a little grace.
Bones: Over a billion pennies were minted in 1943 most of them in steel to conserve copper for World War two but a handful were struck in an old style Bronze planchette. Only about twelve of them exist today. (hands penny to Booth.)
Booth: (looks at it) Whoa. Huh, and this is one of them?
Bones: Yes.
Booth: Oh, how much is it worth?
Bones: Over a hundred thousand dollars. Lionel never showed Gil Atkins the best part of his collection. Atkins murdered him, never knew there was a fortune in his pocket.
Booth: Well it looks like careful Lionel got the last laugh.
(Dr. Goodman walks up to the door and knocks on the frame.)
Dr. Goodman: Ready? It’s time for our test results.
[Cut to: The crew and Booth sit on the stairs of the platform. Two guys in blue Hazmat suits are in front of a machine scanning the test results. They scan something and a light shows up green.]
Booth: Green, green as that green as in go or green as stick a needle in your brain?
(The guys pull off their helmets.)
Hazmat Guy #1: Merry Christmas.
Booth: Oh.
Hodgins: Yes. Ha, ha, ha. We are out of here, Merry Christmas everyone.
(Everyone takes off towards the door and Bones stays behind. Booth stops and turns to face her.)
Bones: Go, go have Christmas. Wish your boy a Merry Christmas from me.
Booth: I’m at Wong Fu’s if you decide you want company, (she nods to him and he nods back.) Merry Christmas Bones.
(He leaves and Bones stands there for a moment. She turns and makes her way up the stairs. Ivy Gillespie who is walking with a cane and her granddaughter enter.)
Lisa: Excuse me?
(Bones comes back down the stairs to join them.)
Lisa: Hi. My name is Lisa Pearce and this is my grandmother Ivy Gillespie. Are you Dr. Brennan?
Bones: Yes.
[Cut to: Bones is in her office with Ivy and Lisa. Ivy is sitting on the couch, her daughter and Bones are standing.]
Ivy: I gave birth to a half white child in Oklahoma in 1960. Lionel’s daughter, raised her myself, no education…got into college. She died eight years ago.
Lisa: Then grandma raised me after that.
Ivy: Her mother was a nurse and Lisa’s going to be a doctor.
Lisa: Grandma I can’t afford college.
(her grandmother shakes her head.)
Ivy: So Lionel was murdered?
Bones: In 1959, yes, by a man named Gil Atkins.
Ivy: And you can figure that out all this time later?
Bones: (hands her the tickets) He had these.
Ivy: (choked up) Tickets to Paris.
Lisa: Grandma isn’t that what he promised you, a life in France?
Ivy: I thought the worst of him.
Lisa: Thank you, Dr. Brennan.
Bones: I have something even better. (hands Lisa the penny)
Ivy: What could be better? You’ve given me back my life.
Lisa: It’s a penny.
Bones: There’s something you ought to know about that penny.
[Cut to: Wong Fu’s. Booth is sitting at the bar and Bones comes in and joins him. She sits down and Sid hands her a drink.]
Bones: Drinks?
Sid: Ah yes. Christmas spirits, well they come in many a guise.
Booth: (holds up his mug) Cheers.
(They all clank mugs together.)
Sid: Ahh.
Bones: Ivy Gillespie came to the lab after you left with her granddaughter.
Booth: Mm.
Bones: Don’t you want to know what happened?
Booth: I know what happened. You told her about careful Lionel. You showed her the letters, the tickets, she cried but you made her happy.
Bones: Not to mention I gave her a penny worth over a hundred thousand dollars.
Booth: She won’t care about that today. You just gave somebody the best Christmas gift they could ever get. Who’s the secret Santa now?
Bones: Stop.
(Her voice activates the robot laying on the counter next to Booth. It starts doing push ups. Booth looks at it.)
Booth: Ooh. (laughs) That weirdo assistant of yours just made me the coolest dad in the world.
(Parker runs in)
Parker: Daddy! Daddy!
(Booth picks him up and kisses him with the robot in his hand)
Booth: Hey look. Look at this thing.
Parker: Can it flip?
Booth: How cool. It can flip, trip, swim, whatever you want. (whispers to him) Can you say Merry Christmas?
Parker: (to Bones) Merry Christmas.
(She smiles and waves to him and he waves back. Booth walks out.)
[Cut to: Lab. Bones turns on the lights and sees all the decorations.]
[Cut to: hologram room. Bones picks up a present under the tree and sits on a nearby couch to open it. The red envelop has Temperance on it. She takes the card out and it’s of a Santa face with HO! HO! HO! on the front. She opens it and it says on the inside Merry Christmas, To our Temperance…much love, mom and dad, Merry Christmas. She then reaches for the present and opens it. She smiles and has a tear in her eye. ~A/N…Unfortunately they don’t show what she got. ~]
FADE TO BLACK.