Bones one-shots

Christine's First Crime Scene

"I don't like irrational numbers. They are confusing and I don't understand how to fit them in to equations." I say as I look up at my mother, who's typically good at helping me understand these things, but I'm just not getting it.
"Find the-" she starts, but is cut off by a loud ringing of her cell.
"One second" she picks it up. "This is Dr. Temperance Brennan" a pause as the other end speaks. "Okay I'll be there promptly." And she hangs up. "Sorry Christine, I guess death has interrupted math," she says, finding humor in that. She pauses for a second, and whispers something inaudible to herself. "What's wrong mum?" I ask.
"Your grandfather is out of town, and I'm not sure I'd like to leave you here alone." The situation sets in, and I enthusiastically propose, "I could come with you!" Sure, I knew I was responsible enough to be home alone for a few hours, but my mother has never been to comfortable with it. Additionally, I've always found her work intriguing. After she takes a second to think, she says, "there isn't anything specifically forbidding it. So, okay."
I smile as she says that and run to my room to grab my bag before we head out.

» » » On Scene » » »
Age 10, too young to stay home alone but just old enough to watch my mother analyze a dead body. I find it kind of, silly, for lack of a better word. We park in a gravel parking lot in a woodsy area. Mum comes around the car to open the child-locked doors. She's rather protective of me, but in her line of work she sees horrific things on the daily so I understand why. I hop out of the car and am greeted by the familiar face of Auntie Angela.
"Oh, hi Christie! What a lovely surprise!" She says genuinely. Christie, a nickname I'm only okay with her calling me. I hate when other people do it, I don't know why. "Hi Auntie Angela!" I say, waving my right hand as fast as it goes. My favorite class is science. It goes hand-in-hand with math, which I'll admit I don't understand to the fullest, but you can't with anything, so thank god for calculators. Biology is my favorite, so as you can imagine this is rather exciting for me. But I do remember that I must remain respectful, as what I am about to see was once human. Despite that I did remember, the next words spoken are from my mother to me about that.
"When we go on to the scene remember, you must remain respectful, and on your best behavior."
I nod to her, as she guides us down the gravel path and we see the yellow tape in under a minute. I contain the intense emotions I feel about this. Excitement, fascination, curiosity, I identify. Grief. At the fact that I'm going to witness what remains of a human life. Mom hands me a medical-grade Mask and gloves.
"Although you do have gloves on it is expected that you don't touch a single thing, it's still a crime scene to be processed by professionals. It's more of a precaution."
I did have that understanding before she mentioned it, also the understanding that she's being thorough to insure i do not invalidate any potential evidence.
We approach where I assume the body will be, as moms friends are surrounding a slight dip in the ground. They all notice me and give a wave before refocusing, sequentially I look down. There lies a lifeless, partially decomposed, human. I stare at it and can't help but analyze what I see, as it's in my nature. An important aspect of math, is at a crime scene, how my mom is so familiar with it, that she essentially has a mental ruler she takes out, figuratively speaking, to tell the gender and race of a body. That's how dad describes it, but I'm still impressed when I hear my mom speak.
"Caucasian, male." She pauses. "25 to 35" she adds.
I hear a familiar, confused voice.
"I- ah- uh- Bones-." It's my father. I smile, despite the mask on my face, and wave to dad.
"Bones can I talk to you alone for a sec-" he says.
Mom looks at Angela. "Ange?" And I see her nod, and mum goes off to talk to dad. "The left clavicle has a sort of break." I say, pointing. As I said, good with biology, despite bad math skills.
"Smart kid" Cam responds.
"Shes an impressive girl" Angela adds.
"She is also correct." Cam again spoke, confirming the obvious.
"I'd place time of death at 36 to 48 hours ago due to the temperature and weather in this part of the state, that contributes to the rapid decompression."
"42 to 48," Uncle Jack adds, to narrow down the postmortem interval.
Mom comes back and tells Angela, "booth is not very enthusiastic about my decision to take Christine with me opposed to leaving her home alone but I think it was quite the obvious choice"
My dad is also, quite protective of me. But my mom wasn't much older then me when she first was introduced to death, and she's turned out more then fine, so I don't understand what his problem is. But apparently, auntie Angela agrees with my dad.
"I would not be very happy if I found that jack brought Mikey here, so I definitely know where booth is coming from."
Mikey is Michael-Vincent's (well preferred) nickname.
"Well I would be upset if Mikey was here too, he would not listen if you told him not to touch the evidence whereas Christine does." My mom responded. Mikey finds joy in playing in the mud, poking around dead animals in the woods by his house, and it takes both my and his mom's persuasion to get him to stop and come inside. He would without a doubt touch something here he is not supposed to.
"That too, but that is not what I meant."
My mother gives a confused expression at that but turns back to the body. I point out to her what I did to her friends, and she looks at it then nods at me. Next, she calls technicians to wrap up the scene.

» » » At The Lab » » »
I convinced my mom that once we get to the lab, that I shall stay with her rather than go to the childcare center. I don't like to go there because the next oldest kid is 8. he's rather annoying. It isn't often I do, as whenever my parents work on the weekend, my grandfather almost always watches me, but it's a nightmare there. My grandfather does real estate work every now and then, to keep himself busy, and 2 months ago it happened that my mom got called in 20 minutes before he had to meet with a client, so he dropped me off at the childcare center before he went, and George, the 8 year old, kept trying to talk to me about his toy train set. I could not care less for trains, especially toy trains. I told him to leave me alone and he threw one at me. I had a bruise on my forehead for a week. And my mom still thinks it's better than leaving me home alone! I don't understand that logic, at all. I explained to her how George is there every Sunday, something he says to me over and over. And I told her I wouldn't like to see him. She accepted that and said I could hang out in her office for a little. She mentioned that "Cam's rules are just that no infants are allowed." And I surely do not count as an infant. Although I do believe she had a conversation about where I am and am not allowed to go. I sit down at my mom's desk and pull a book from my bag while my mom continues to work on the platform.
After a while my mom comes back. "So, your dad is not very happy with the fact that I brought you to a crime scene."
I did, in-fact, have that understood. I nod.
"He says I should have asked him first, and that you may be disturbed by the, in his words, 'icky dead stuff'."
"Disturbed, is, not the right word. It smelt bad but was definitely more fascinating than disturbing."
She laughs and smiles, because of course a dead body smells bad.
"Maybe you could tell him that, but I came in here to tell you jack offered to show you around his bug room, if you were interested. He already did all he can at this point in the case so he has a little free time."
"I don't know that much about insects, besides one thing, that they are super cool!"
I say, indicating that yes, I would like to.