(no subject)

[argyle_princess]

As an excuse to visit the San Diego area goes, the Museum of Man is probably about as good as it gets for an anthropologist. Very kind of them to put it there, really.

But that's all it is -- an excuse. Hannah knows it even when Brennan calls to invite her down to look at the very interesting skull she's theortically flown 3000 miles to see.

The purpose of this trip, Hannah knows, is so that Brennan can tell her what she had learned from Commodore Lyon. Which she does. In a very Brennan sort of way, calmly and logically and in a very ordered fashion. It's rationally told, even when it's fantastic.

And Hannah, looking down at the 14th century skull over which they are having this conversation, nods a lot, and doesn't interrupt, and doesn't say anything even when Brennan finishes.

Comments

[dr_temperance]

The silence stretches on after Brennan finishes her recount.

It doesn't necessarily make her uncomfortable, but it can't go on forever either.

"At least we have a few more answers now," she finally says.

Not the most encouraging of answers maybe, but answers.

[argyle_princess]

"Yeah," says Hannah, nodding. "Sorry, I'm just sort of . . . processing, I guess."

[dr_temperance]

Brennan nods.

"It's a lot. To process."

She goes quiet again, and picks up the skull in her gloved hands, silently examining it.

Giving Hannah some semblance of privacy to process without leaving her on her own.

[argyle_princess]

"I think," says Hannah, finally, "it makes it a little better. Or at least not any worse."

Sometimes, that's all you get.

"Thanks. For finding out. And coming to tell me."

[dr_temperance]

"I've often found that answers, even if they're not the answers that you want, are better than not knowing."

As Brennan knows from experience, both professional and personal.

She offers Hannah a half smile over the skull.

"And you're welcome."

[argyle_princess]

"So where are you staying?" Hannah asks.

She can't quite summon any real interest in the skull.

[dr_temperance]

Brennan carefully sets the skull aside.

"At the Neptune Grand."

[argyle_princess]

"Kinda inconvenient for San Diego, isn't it?" she asks, with just a slight smile.

[dr_temperance]

A smile that Brennan returns.

"San Diego wasn't really the purpose of the visit."

"Besides," she adds, trying to lighten the mood a bit, "it's a nice hotel."

[argyle_princess]

"Yeah," says Hannah, who left it under rather less than nice circumstances the last time she visited. But that is water long gone under the bridge, or over the dam.

"I'll give you the nickle tour of Neptune," Hannah offers. "Sites of interests.

"Mostly crime scenes."

[dr_temperance]

Brennan nods.

"Okay. I usually don't get a chance to tour the towns I'm visiting."

The tours she does get to take almost always involve crime scenes, but that's okay.

"If you want to talk...about Henry or the Commodore or anything..."

[argyle_princess]

"I'll let you know," Hannah says. "I promise."

There aren't, sadly, a lot of Neptune Highlights that aren't crime scenes.

[dr_temperance]

"Okay."

"So," Brennan rests her elbows on the table, "what is there to see in Neptune? Crime scenes or otherwise?"

[argyle_princess]

"Well, there's the Grand, where you're staying, and where Aaron Echolls was murdered and Beaver Casablancas jumped off the roof, on the same night. And there's the Coranado Bridge, where Aaron's wife Lynn leapt to her death and where Logan got in that knife fight with the gang. And there's the boardwalk, where are far as I know, no one's been killed. And Amy's, for ice cream. And the PCH, of course. And, um, the what used to be the Kane mansion, where Lilly Kane was murdered, and the old site of the Echolls mansion, which burned to the groubd. And the high school."

[dr_temperance]

Brennan looks probably a little more bemused than she ought to.

"Do many of those make it into the official tourism brochures?"

She lives in a tourist town herself after all.

A tourist brochure that highlighted murders in DC would probably go on for pages.

[argyle_princess]

"A lot of tour companies hit the Echolls highlights," says Hannah, shrugging. "They were kinda a big deal."

[dr_temperance]

"That's...." The look on Brennan's face is one of abject disgust. "Extremely disturbing."

[argyle_princess]

Another shrug.

"It was worse right after it happened. It's tapering off. Old news, you know?"

[dr_temperance]

"I'm afraid I haven't heard anything about it. Well, aside from what you've mentioned about the Echolls family."

Brennan doesn't follow celebrity news or gossip. And the Echollses rarely feature when she and Hannah talk.

[argyle_princess]

"Well, if you want, I can fill you in," Hannah offers. "As sordid Hollywood tales go, it's, um, almost too stereotypical to be real. Like, if you wrote it, they'd make you take some out because, just way too much happens."

When good shows go bad . . .

[dr_temperance]

Brennan smiles. It sound like an interesting story.

"Sure," she says.

"Lunch and then tour, or tour and then lunch?"

[argyle_princess]

"Lunch first," says Hannah, decidedly.

She'll even eat most of it.

"Do you have more things you need to do with Yorrick there?"

[dr_temperance]

A sheepish look crosses Brennan's face.

"I actually helped with the original cataloging," she admits.

Well, it's not like Hannah doesn't know that looking at the skull isn't the real reason she's in California.

"Although, I did think you might enjoy getting a look behind the scenes here."

[argyle_princess]

"So this is like a check-up?" Hannah asks, with something like a smile.

Then an easy shrug. "So look around here, lunch, Neptune tour."

[dr_temperance]

"Something like that."

Of course, she's checking up on something more important than a skull.

"I think that sounds like viable plan."