BONES AU - PART TWO "The Stargazer In The Puddle"

BONES AU 2 Chapter One

CHAPTER ONE

"Max?" Mitch asked as he sheepishly entered his office. Max smiled up from his work, his goggles crooked. Mitch laughed a little.

"Whath up?"

"I've, uh... I've changed my mind. Lets get married. This week."

Max blinked a few times in shock. "W-Wait... reallyth?" Mitch nodded with a smile and sat down.

"Im thinking, nice traditional church service? Very ecumenical."

"I'm okay with that, so long as the retheption makes Caligula bluth." Max grinned and went back to his work. Mitch looked over at it.

"What's that?"

"They were found in this case. Probably belong to the victim."

Mitch frowned. "But... aren't those children's stamps...? Oh god don't tell me it another kid case, Max."

Max nodded. "Another kid. I hate these catheth too." He started to type. "Hey, these water thampleth are teeming with organithimth. I found an inordinately large number of dead fairy thrimp in the mud beneath the remains. I will not make a "clap for Tinker Bell" joke, promithe."

"Hey, how bout we don't discuss child murder and our upcoming nuptials in the same conversation?"

"Yea, good ideath." Max nodded and looked up at Mitch.

"Hey, uh, do you want me to, um, change my name?"

Max hesitated. This could be a trick question. "Do you want me to want you to change your name...?"

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Scott turned the screen, showing an x-ray of the lower skull and upper vertebrae.

"Do you know what youre looking at?" Scott asked. Joe looked hesitant then smiled without confidence.

"The neck bone that's connected to the shoulder bone...?" He half sang the children's song. Scott scoffed and shook his head, then pointed at the screen.

"There's arthritic lipping here and here on the posterior dens."

"Arthritis."

"She had to- She had to look up like this." Scott looked up at the ceiling, as if there were stars up there.

"Maybe she prayed a lot?"

"Four to six hours a day? What could she have wanted so badly, then?"

Joe shrugged.

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Kirstie and Max were now working on the platform. They usually did all sorts of experiments to help solve cases. Inflating a skull-less head, exploding melons, just to name a few. Kirstie was currently lost in examining the skull.

"Well, Dr. Hoying was right as always, it seems to be a .22 caliber slug. I learned slug from Kevin. He knows all sortsa vocabulary, did you know that? Anyways, it's a colloquialism for projectile, which, so far, the F. B. I. has not been able to find."

Max nodded and before he could say anything, Mitch walked up with his sketch pad.

"Okay, I have a face, but you aren't gonna like it." He showed the drawing.

"Mitch... that is an older woman, I provided you with the tissue data for a 6-year-old Caucasian female."

"Well, when I actually held the skull and started, the tissue markers felt wrong." He responded to Kirstie, who looked skeptical.

"Mitch, with all due respect to your art, facial reconstruction is a science."

"Honey, its both. And this time? Art made science her bitch."

Max raised an eyebrow. "Mmm..."

"Look, hon, moan all you want but I stand by this."

"Kirstie, check to see if you got the aging wrong, okay?"

Kirstie frowned. "Because art made science her bitch? Or..." Kirstie had her thinking face on and turned to the skeleton. "Or, maybe because the lipping on the vertebrae had to have been caused by looking up over a period of several years. That's a scientific rationale for rechecking." Kirstie got to work. Max and Mitch gave each other a shrug and went to what they were doing. Mitch, afterwards, though went to Scott's office.

"Hey, uh... Scott?"

He looked up from the case file and smiled. "Sup, Mitch?"

"I'd like to ask you a favor. Well, it's not so much ask a favor as-as extend an honor. I mean, I hope you see it as an honor and don't think of it as some onerous duty. Which I don't think you will, but then again, I've never done this before-"

"Mitch, just ask."

"Will you be my, uh... will you stand up with me?"

Scott stood up. "Like this?"

"Nonono, silly, I meant at the wedding!"

"Ohh yea that'd make more sense. In that case, I am totally completely honored to stand up with you, as you put it."

Mitch smiled and hugged him. "Thank you, thank you, thank you!"

Scott hugged him back. The one person he didn't feel awkward hugging. He really was happy Mitch asked him. If he were a girl, he most likely would have declined, due to the awful bridesmaids dresses, in all honesty.