The Smarter Booth

Chapter 6: Execution

⌻Season 1, Episode 7⌻

Serena yawns as she lays on the couch in her office, "Am I interrupting something?"

She looks up, seeing Jack knocking on her door, "Just a well deserved nap."

"It's after closing, you could go home. Why don't you just go to bed?" Jack snorts, sitting in the chair next to her couch.

"I just managed tracked down the rare species of Platanthera praeclara. It'll be in my lab next week. What have you done that brings you to annoy me after closing?" Serena smiles, angling her head to look at him.

Jack smiles, "Zack and I are gonna bug wrestle. We need a unbiased set of eyes to referee. You in?"

 Serena sighs, "Do I have a choice, boss?"

"No, you don't," Jack stands up, pulling her up a little to harshly by the fact that she stumbles into him and he has to grab her waist to keep her upright, "Oh, um," He clears his throat.

She shakes her head, "Come on, I've got a bug war to referee or something."

They meet Zack in the lab, Jack quickly taking the cup off the beetles, "What if they get mixed up."

"I can tell them apart," Zack says, confidently as he points, "That's Jeff and that's Ollie."

"Zack wins," Serena says, pointing.

"What? That was mine."

Serena shakes her head, "No, you had Jeff, he had Ollie."

Jack crosses his arms, "We never told you who we had."

"You're right. I assigned them to you in my head. Ollie won so you owe Zack and I each a buck."

"I want a different one. Jeff has a groin pull," Jack sighs after another round as both Serena and Zack hold out their hands.

Zack shakes his head, "Arthropods do not possess groins. Pay up."

Serena looks up as Angela starts to leave while Seeley enters with a file, "Okay, our tax dollars hard at work."

"Don't act like you don't spend at least an hour a day working on your trick shots from behind your desk, Seeley," Serena calls her brother out. 

Seeley sticks his tongue out and puts the jar over the bugs, causing Jack to groan as the FBI agent heads over to Brennan, "Hey, Bones, what are you doing this weekend?"

Serena pats the two on the back, "I'm heading back to my office to grab my stuff. I have a bed thats calling my name."

Without turning away from his conversation with Brennan, Seeley shouts, "That better be your own bed!"

"Shut up!"

⌻⌻⌻⌻

Not laying in bed like she would like, Serena sits next to Jack as he pulls out different items from an evidence box, "Okay, let's start. Zack, pull up the first x-ray. Stress fractures on both tibias."

"What's that mean?" Seeley asks his partner.

"Preexisting the assault," Zack answers for her, "Probably an old injury from dance or running."

"She was a cheerleader."

Jack angrily adds, "The Chinese used to execute people by cutting small pieces of flesh off their bodies. Called it the death of a thousand cuts-"

Serena snaps the rubber band on his wrist as Brennan keeps going, "Compound fractures of the trapezium, scaphoid and the base of the radius."

"What's that mean?" Seeley asks again.