Work Text:
The Jeffersonian Institute Medico-Legal Lab / Limbo Storage
Booth swaggered through the automatic doors, Cocky belt buckle leading the way like the prow of a very self-assured ship.
"SQUINTS!" His voice bounced off the gleaming surfaces of the lab floor. "New corpse found by the river! Let's load up!"
Silence.
He looked around. The platform was empty. The offices were dark. He did a full lap anyway, because Booth was thorough like that, poking his head into Brennan's office, the X-ray room, the DNA lab. Nary a nerd to be found.
Did I wander in after a fire drill?
He took the stairs up to the lounge. Also empty, unless you counted a half-eaten container of Hodgins' suspiciously artisanal yogurt on the counter.
He stood there for a moment, hands on his hips.
Maybe they're in Limbo.
It was, he reflected, not the strangest thought he'd ever had in this building. He shrugged and headed down.
He smelled it before he saw it. That particular dusty, ancient, faintly resinous smell that meant something very old and very not-his-problem had arrived at the Jeffersonian. They were all clustered around a gurney, practically vibrating.
"Bones!" He clapped his hands together. "Suit up. We've got a fresh one. River body, let's go."
Nobody moved. Nobody even twitched. They were all talking over each other in that way they did when something had genuinely lit them up, gesturing and peering and scribbling notes.
Booth put two fingers in his mouth and let out the Dad Whistle.
That did it. Heads swiveled toward him.
"I have a body," he said, gesturing broadly toward the general direction of the river. "A new body. Can we please —"
"Booth." Brennan turned to face him fully, and she had the look. The one that meant he was about to learn something he hadn't asked to know. "Do you understand what we have here?"
"...A skeleton?"
"An Eighth Dynasty Egyptian skeleton." She said it the way other people said winning lottery ticket. "This is the end of the Old Kingdom, Booth. Extraordinarily rare. The transitional period alone raises questions about…"
"Did you know," Mr. Nigel-Murray interjected cheerfully, "that in Victorian England, mummies were ground up to produce a pigment called Mummy Brown? Quite popular for shadows and flesh tones. Entirely made of people."
Booth stared at him. "Why would you think I would want to know that?"
"I just find it fascinating!"
"I find it fascinating," Angela said, not looking up from her tablet, fingers already flying. "The facial reconstruction on this is going to be incredible. Look at these cheekbones, Booth. This person was gorgeous."
"The wrappings." Hodgins had his face approximately four inches from the linen and the expression of a man who had just found religion. "The particulates in these wrappings. Ancient resins. I'm seeing what might be… yes. YES. Nobody talk to me."
"I'm already mapping the bone density distribution," Wendell said, and then glanced up at Booth with a slight apologetic grimace before being pulled back in by whatever Brennan was pointing at.
Wendell at least had the decency to look a little guilty about it. That counted for something.
Booth stood in the doorway of Limbo and looked at his team. His very busy, completely unavailable, not-going-anywhere team.
The body at the river was not getting any fresher.
"Fine," he said. "I'll use the FBI team today."
He turned and walked back down the hall. Behind him, the squints had already closed ranks around the gurney, chattering happily in the specific frequency of people who had completely forgotten he existed.
He was almost to the elevator when he heard Nigel-Murray's voice echo after him.
"The Egyptians also used natron salts in the embalming process. Did you know natron is essentially a naturally occurring laundry detergent?"
The elevator doors closed.
Booth rode up alone, straightened his Cocky belt buckle, and called Agent Perotta.