(no subject)

[dr_temperance]

When your colleague and former intern confesses to working with a serial killer, it generates a lot of paperwork.

Especially when you work for the federal government.

Higher-ups want to know how it could have happened, if there had been any signs, how it had slipped through the cracks. They obtain this information via lengthy and detailed questionnaires. Brennan, who had hired Zach as her intern three years ago, has a stack only slightly shorter than Cam’s, who, as the boss, is dealing with the worst of it.

Brennan is slowly and steadily working her way through hers, her forehead propped on her hand. It’s all a waste of time—the questions and reports, and the psych evaluations for the team that the administration is discussing. The damage has already been done. Extreme CYA measures now aren’t going to undo it.

But Brennan can’t even work up the wherewithal to care. She just neatly completes another page, flips it over into the ‘finished’ pile, and starts on the next.

One foot in front of the other.

[Post-Pain In The Heart]

[Work may call for slowtime]

Comments

[works-in-space.livejournal.com]

Kirk is sitting not far off, thinking, and still not eating that stovepipe hat-shaped cupcake the Bar gave him. But he sees a friend he hasn't seen in a long while, and smile.

"Temperance!"

[dr_temperance]

Brennan looks up with an automatic, but very genuine, smile.

"Jim!"

She frowns, tilting her head.

"What are you eating?"

[works-in-space.livejournal.com]

"It's a stovepipe hat cupcake. Lincoln's birthday. And Darwin's, as well." He suspects she would appreciate that more. "Bar knows I'm a Lincoln buff.

"How have you been? It's been a long while."

[dr_temperance]

"It's the 12th?"

Brennan's been a little distracted lately. But yes--the 12th would make it Darwin's birthday. She doesn't know Lincoln's off the top of her head, but she trusts that Jim would know the accurate date.

"It has been. Too long," Brennan adds, flipping her papers face down and coming over to his table.

"I'm alright. How are things with you?"

[works-in-space.livejournal.com]

"Generally fine at home. Relatively routine star mapping, some diplomatic assignments, occasional patrols along the Neutral Zone." In other words, too quiet. "Here, though...do you know Katherine Barlow?"

[dr_temperance]

Brennan shakes her head.

"I'm not familiar with the name, no."

"She's a friend of yours?"

[works-in-space.livejournal.com]

He nods. "She's a young woman from Texas. From just after the Civil War. And she just watched man get shot for the crime of kissing her.

"He was a man of color." The disgust and anguish in Jim's voice is strong. "It's one thing to study that era. And another to see a friend suffer for its mindset."

[dr_temperance]

Brennan nods.

"A couple of years ago, my team and I were involved in a case revolving around an interracial couple who were involved in the 1950s. The man was white, the woman was black. He was murdered in DC while trying to get enough money together for them to leave the country."

"The attitude persisted long after the Civil War, I'm afraid."

[works-in-space.livejournal.com]

He nods. "I know that, of course. My studies of the Civil Rights Era aren't as broad as those of the Civil War, but I know about Dr. King, Selma, and so forth. But it's one thing to study it and another to see someone affected by it."

[dr_temperance]

"This is true."

Brennan has seen the results of extreme human rights violations, oftentimes the result of tensions between ethnic groups. Just not within the boundaries of her own country.

She is quiet for a moment before asking, "How is Ms. Barlow?"

Even as she asks it, she knows it is an illogical question. How else would one feel in such a situation? But it is the thing to ask.

[works-in-space.livejournal.com]

"Last I saw her, she was a total wreck, unfortunately. There wasn't much I could do. Sometimes it's best to not try to do much.

"I haven't seen her since. I am hoping her boyfriend found her and cleaned her up." He will never forget the look of shock on Katherine's dirty face.

[dr_temperance]

"Sometimes discreet distance is more helpful," Brennan agrees.

She and her colleagues have been practicing that a lot lately, it seems.

"Unfortunately, I would imagine that there's very little, if any, legal recourse that can be taken in her world?"

Brennan considers the last bit for a second. "Then...the man who kissed her and was subsequently murdered was not her boyfriend?"

It would stand to reason that the answer would be know. But it's Milliways. It pays to ask for clarification.

[works-in-space.livejournal.com]

"I honestly don't know. It's possible that I misunderstand her relationship with...well, I'm not entirely sure it's with Doc Scurlock, but that was my impression." Katherine never actually spelled any of it out, but Jim does recognize certain signs. "But beyond that, it took me a while just to find out what happened at all.

"She might have had a second boyfriend, which is possible but a little unlikely in that era. Or it was an innocent kiss between friends in a time when that was rare." Exposure to the ideas the Bar offers could lead a young woman to kiss a friend in a way totally all right in later times, after all. "I don't think that situation matters. A man is dead, a woman saw it happen, and people calling themselves the law will get away with murder."

[argyle_princess]

"You look like you need coffee."

And look, here's someone with two cups.

Convenient how that works out, isn't it?

[dr_temperance]

"How does one look like one needs coffee?" Brennan asks.

But she takes one of the cups with a tired smile.

Because Hannah is correct. She does need coffee.

[argyle_princess]

"One looks tired, and completely surrounded by paperwork.

"Alternately, one looks like a college student.

"How are you, Brennan?"

[dr_temperance]

"I believe the two scenarios you've just outlined can often be considered one and the same."

All college students look tired and are surrounded by paperwork. But not everyone who looks tired and is surrounded by paperwork is a college student.

"I'm alright. The Medico-Legal lab is under an administrative review, but that's to be expected."

"How are you?"

[argyle_princess]

"Second semester of freshman year busy," Hannah says.

Also, alternately not speaking to and exchanging angry e-mails with her dad, but that's not worth getting into right now.

"'Administrative review'?"

Hannah looks at the papers.

"More surveys?"

[dr_temperance]

"Questionaires. From the Jeffersonian. Some from the FBI. And the prosecutor's office. I submitted a report, but they want clarification and detail on a number of points."

Fifty-seven particular points, by Brennan's count.

Her mouth twists humorously.

"I believe there is some concern among the Jeffersonian's administration that they may be sued by the families of some of the victims."

[argyle_princess]

"Well, you know, you do have to sue somebody," Hannah says.

"How are you doing? With . . . you know, with all that?"

Hannah does not mean the fifty-seven points of clarification.

[dr_temperance]

"I am....addressing issues as they arise," Brennan says.

It's not the most helpful of answers, but it's all she's got. The ripple effect of what Zach had done just keeps getting wider.

Structure of the lab. The need to assign a new intern. Dealing with the Addy family. Keeping a worried eye on Hodgins. Organizing evidence for the Gormogon case. The list keeps growing.

"And I am saying 'no comment' a great deal," she adds dryly.

Brennan is all for freedom of the press. She just wishes the press would learn to be a bit more restrained sometimes.

[argyle_princess]

"It's a useful phrase," Hannah says.

It probably doesn't help that there's a best-selling author in the middle of what was already a pretty juicy story.

"And that's . . . the whole thing kinda just sucks."

It's not especially eloquent, and it's a hell of an understatement, but . . . yeah.

[dr_temperance]

"I would have to agree with that assessment."

Sometimes a colloquialism expresses things better than more complicated verbiage ever could.

"One reporter even managed to get my home number. He was unfortunate enough that Max answered the phone."

And the intrepid newshound had gotten an earful for his pains. And while Brennan knows that, from a public relations standpoint, having your father blast a member of the press is not a good thing, it had still been extremely satisfying.

Besides. It's not like the situation can deteriorate any more from this point.

[argyle_princess]

". . . I think he was probably fortunate that he got your home number, and not your address."

Because Max Keenan and someone he thinks is bothering one of his kids?

It ends messy.

[dr_temperance]

"I imagine that they do have it. I'm not difficult to find," Brennan says. "But no one has shown up at my front door yet, fortunately."

For her, and for the reporters.

"No one has bothered you, have they? I don't know how widely known your association with us is, but.....well, it wouldn't take too much digging."

Hannah is a frequent and documented visitor. And occasionally you wind up with a Jeffersonian staff member who is more loose-lipped than he or she should be.