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Finding Bones	By : MariaTeresaQuintanar Category: 1 through F > Bones Views: 2697 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Bones, The Finder, or any of the other television shows mentioned. I do not make any moneys from this story.

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And here's the next chapter! Are we having fun yet? Let me know!

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Chapter Twelve

            “He’s up to something,” Maggie said to Angela and Cam who were sitting out on the deck with her.
            “Who, sweetie?” Angie asked.
            “Walter,” she muttered. “He’s blocking me. The only time he does that is when he’s up to something.” She took a sip of her malt. “It can’t be just about the food.”
            Angela and Cam looked to each other, eyes going wide.
            “Whatever do you mean?” Cam asked.
            “Walter’s been putting protein powder into my malts and I could tell that there was something nearly healthy about those corn dog bites. I could taste it. I checked the box and sure enough, they’re chicken,” she told them. “If they didn’t taste so damn good, I would have tossed them overboard already.”
            Brennan came over and cleared her throat. “May I speak to you, Maggie? Alone?”
            “Promise me a meat lovers pizza and I’ll follow you anywhere,” she said flippantly. When it looked like she wasn’t getting the joke, Maggie got up and said, “But of course we can. Your room or mine?”
            “Yours will suffice,” she murmured and followed her to the cabins below deck.
            Once to the captain’s quarters, Maggie asked her, “Would you like something to drink? I made iced tea, if you’d like to have some.”
            “No thank you,” Brennan said tightly. “I find myself in a very difficult position.”
            “Hmm, you don’t say,” she murmured, as she poured some of the iced tea for herself. “Like yoga?”
            Frowning Brennan said, “No.” She paced for a time, as Maggie watched. “I’ve never been one to apologize often or even well…”
            “Brennan…”
            “No, let me finish,” she told her tightly. “I owe you…”
            “Brennan.”
            “…an apology…”
            “For God sake, Temperance, look at me!” she snapped, making the other woman look right at her. “Sit down.” Brennan did as she was ordered. “I wasn’t standing over where you were looking. Your other friends may let you get away with things like that, but I’m not them. If you’re going to talk to me, be the woman I know you are and look me in the eyes as you tell me what you have to say. Make it simple and to the point, because I’ll call bullshit if you don’t. Not due to the lack of intelligence, but because nonsense comes in all different packages. Yours just has bigger words and longer sentences.”
            “Okay,” she said quietly. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said what I did. All you wanted was my daughter’s participation in what you thought…no, it wasn’t just a thought. It was a special event. And I said something that not only insulted you, but my friends and Booth as well. That was never my intention. And for that, I apologize.”
            “Accepted,” she murmured. “Brennan, I’ve been through a lot in these past eight or nine months. I’ve learned to not hold onto the small things. Or at least I hope I have.”
            Brennan cleared her throat before asking, “Do you miss her?”
            She thought it over. “I gave her to my sister to raise. Willa eventually found out about me, but still I wasn’t what anyone would call a parent. Was it wrong of me to think that someone else could provide better for her?” She shrugged. “I did as much as I could without rocking the boat.” Pursing her lips. “She was smart as a whip, as beautiful as an angel, and as fiendish as a devil. And for the shortest of times I was blessed enough to have her in my life.” Tears were now forming in Maggie’s eyes. “They found her and Leo’s remains yesterday thanks to a burnt out car nearby the shallow graves. They have traveled to your lab for identification. Please, Brennan, take care of them once you can?”
            “You know I will,” she assured her.
            Wiping the tears away hastily, Maggie got to her feet. “I better go clean up my face.” Letting out a weary sigh, she said, “I think I’ve cried more these last few days than I have in a good long time.”
            “I’ll just leave…”
            “Please don’t,” Maggie said. “It’s been forever that I’ve been able to speak about family. And since you’re now kin, I don’t see the problem in telling you just a bit.” She laughed. “You know, the bits that won’t get me or others into trouble.”
            Chuckling she said, “That would be nice.”
            “I was named after my grandmother, my Nana, who was said to have the sight as well, but not as strong as me,” she started as she grabbed a cloth and wet it. Maggie patted her face with it, as she went on with, “She was a very loving woman with what could be called a limited scope. Meaning, she would threaten to give the evil eye over the silliest of things, like the failure to take out the trash or do the dishes.
            “I called it a lack of foresight, she called it being practical.” This had Brennan smiling as she listened. “There were a lot of different versions of the name Magdalena among the family when I arrived and received the same moniker. And there were plenty after me as well.” She held up her hand. “But of all the different Magdalenas out there, I’m the only one to go by the name Maggie, because my nana deemed it so.”
            “So it’s commonly thought that within your family that those with the name ‘Magdalena’ will have what you have?”
            “So it appears to be,” she replied. “Thing of it is, Brennan, it’s never been about the name. Ever. There was a Richard with the gift and a Duncan as well. There was a Lilith and Francesca. But because the first Magdalena had power, others thought it held strength. And perhaps it had some, but the power we’re talking about is…” She thought it over as she took a sip of her tea. “…more political than anything else.”
            “They were hoping for some boost within the family?”
            “There’s politics in everything, as much as I loathe to say as much,” she murmured. “They named their child after the woman they referred to as the keystone of the family. And by doing so would gain a higher standing. This makes it a little tricky, as it’s also inherited. The first born of the first born and so on is named so in a certain segment of our clan. The last one being so odd as to be called ridiculous. Because who wants to name a boy Magdalena, I ask you?”
            “That does sound odd,” Brennan replied smiling.
            “Very,” she murmured, “I’ll introduce you to my cousin Mag one of these days and you’ll know exactly how weird that is.” Studying the woman across from her, she said, “Tell me why you think Pelant is after you.”
            “Okay.” She thought it over. “We were hunting him as a serial killer. I outsmarted him.”
            Maggie shook her head no. “Try again.”
            Frowning now. “What do you mean?”
            “He set out to entice you. To get your attention specifically,” she murmured. “Why?”
            Now sitting up straight, Brennan inquired, “Why do you say that?”
            “He kills in your town,” Maggie replied. “He left that spine and skull at the Jeffersonian. Tell me that wasn’t meant to be directed towards you.”
            “We know that…”
            “Yes, but did you ever ask why?”
            “Why was never so important as catching him,” she told her. “Well it hasn’t until now that is.”
            “In other words, you never concerned yourself with it. Booth, on the other hand, lives and breathes that side of the work.” Brennan nodded to this. “But I thought it would be important that you comprehend why.” Sipping on her tea. “Want to hear a story while I show you a card trick or two?”
            “Sure.”
            Maggie went off and got a new deck of cards. She shuffled them picking out the cards she would need and began to tell her story. “Not so long ago and in a place not too far from here, there were three men.” She put out three cards, setting the others aside. Flipping over the middle one, Maggie showed the king of clubs. “There was a master. He had just helped his own master retire in full and he himself had gained the title. A tricky task, as this wasn’t just any job we are speaking of. For it was up to him to deal death. And he needed an apprentice.”
            “Gormogon,” Booth whispered, as he walked closer.
            “Exactly,” Maggie murmured. “Come and sit. Listen, for this story is too important not to be heard.” He sat down next to Brennan. “He hunted for an apprentice far and wide until there were but two he would consider for the post.”
            She turned over both the other cards. One being the jack of diamonds and the other the jack of hearts. She lifted both, looking from one and then to the other.
            “They were both highly intelligent men. But even as similar as they appeared to be, they weren’t.” She showed them the jack of diamonds. “One was a monster in his own right. Cold, arrogant, and was already going to task, though no one knew it at the time other than the Master who had watched him so well.”
            She now went to the jack of hearts. “This one was in search of pure logic, as well as some higher calling. He knew within him that there was something more to what he was doing. It didn’t help that he didn’t understand most around him. Emotional thoughts were best left to another in his opinion.” She lowered the card. “Trouble was he wasn’t a psychopath. Somewhat emotionally detached that was true, but never a psychopath.” She held the cards side by side. “They knew of each other, of course, because who doesn’t fight for a post without knowing their opponent?” Putting the cards on the table, she added, “And they hated each other.” She moved them so that they were on either side of the king, but slightly lower than the ruler. “Both fought for the post until it came time for the master to choose.”
            She moved the jack of hearts further up and slightly under the king. “He had made his choice for the one he could truly educate. The one he could mould and shape to exactly what he wished.” She indicated the jack of diamonds. “A killer by nature he was already half formed with the other part of him coming close to being solidified. There would be nothing for the master to teach him and would only be providing his young charge, if he had picked him, an audience.”
            She picked up the jack of diamonds and tore it in half violently. “This rejection…” She quartered the card. “Infuriated him!” She put the cards pieces on the table and picked up the jack of hearts, turning it around and revealing a joker. “For he thought the other a fool incapable of doing what needed to be done.” She turned the card again and it was back to being the jack of hearts. “And he was right, for the young man was no killer.” Maggie looked into Booth’s eyes. “Not a killer.”
            “And as much as the master wanted to start going to task, he couldn’t yet. For he too knew that the young man of his choosing wasn’t ready to go to work.” She picked up another card. The jack of clubs. “So he chose another for the interim. A disposable one, if you will, but one that could help him nonetheless, for he had work and it waited for no man.” Putting it to the other side of the king, she murmured, “And so they toiled, but in his arrogance…”
            She tapped the jack of clubs, pulling it away from the king quickly. “The apprentice was caught.” She put the queen of diamonds out along with the king of hearts on top of the jack of clubs. “And the master needed to be rid of his new albatross.” She tapped the cards and smoke came up from the table. Picking up the cards, Maggie revealed no jack of clubs but dust in the shape of the card. “And he was.”
            “Wow, did you see that!” Booth whispered to Brennan, who hushed him.
            Smiling Maggie set aside the two cards in hand, but went on with her story. “But let us not forget of the other, the unchosen.” She picked up the pile of card parts, rubbing it between her two palms. “He watched and waited…” Slapping one hand on the other, she pulled out the jack of diamonds once again whole. “And he had a plan.” She put the card on the table. “He would prove himself worthy to the master and did the task his apprentice was meant to do.”

TBC...
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Okay another chapter posted. Let me know what you think. Please review!
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Finding Bones