Booth and Brennan in Bakerton

A/N: This story, part of the summer 2020 challenge will involve Jesse Kane from The Man on the Fairway Bones episode. The prompt involves a one-appearance character showing up again during one of Booth's and Brennan's experiences. The appearance of this story may be odd, as my computer's formatting is misbehaving.

Chapter 1

With her penchant for finding unusual places to visit with Booth, Brennan made American Airlines reservations for Thanksgiving week and smiled to herself. This trip would definitely surprise her husband! Christine was in her sophomore year at Georgetown and had been invited to spend the holiday with her roommate from St. Louis.

Fourteen year old Hank was headed for a Boundary Waters campout with Jeffrery Hodgins and his BSA troop. As their assistant scoutmaster, Aubrey would be along for the trip, and she trusted Booth's associate to take excellent care of their son.

The kids were accounted for and it was time to shake things up a little in their marriage. Not that she was complaining; but it had been several years since she and Booth had enjoyed time away from everything together. She had received an email earlier in the week from Dr. Graham Henderson, inviting her to explore a possible dig in Gauteng. Her former colleague now headed the Department of Physical Anthropology at the University of Pretoria. Henderson explained that the South African government was keenly interested in cleaning up environmental hazards within their country, and needed his help laying the groundwork for one site of particular concern.

Once Booth's favorite dinner of homemade mac and cheese was consumed and the pair were cleaning up the kitchen, the scientist made a casual remark. "I've planned a short get-it-up for Thanksgiving for just the two of us." Booth looked over at her and chuckled. "I think you mean getaway, Bones. Where ya got in mind?" She turned her brightest smile on him. "Bakerton, South Africa," she murmured, placing a casserole crock into the dishwasher.

Booth nearly dropped the iced tea glass in his hand. "South Africa? Why on earth-?"
Brennan threw her arms around his neck, dripping soapy water down his back. "The government of Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality is very concerned with the asbestos in Northern Cape Province. A graduate student I knew at Northwestern has been asked to investigate cleaning up the environment left by asbestos mining around Gauteng."

"He is now head of Anthropology at the University of Pretoria. Dr. Henderson was approached to study a mitigation of hazards remaining at the Bakerton asbestos harvesting site. The deposits of kimberlite, an igneous rock containing diamonds, are very close to asbestos deposits in the Kimberly region."

Recognizing his wife's innate professorial tendency, Booth quietly sat down on one of the kitchen bar stools as Brennan launched into a scholarly explanation of her subject. He watched her fondly, his favorite person speaking as the teacher she is,

"The origins of diamond mining began when a 15-year-old boy discovered a transparent rock on his father's Cape Colony farm in December 1866. There was a sizeable diamond deposit found at Kimberly in Northern Cape, and a few years later Lord Cecil Rhodes invested heavily in the area's developing diamond digs. By 1888 he founded DeeBeers Consolidated Mines."

" 'Near Kimberly lie the Asbestos Mountains. This Northern Cape range of hills was named after the substance mined there in the early 20th century. Asbestos originates as a type of amphibole called crocidolite. The veins are found in slate, along with brown iron ore, jasper, quartzite, and magnetite. The strange white fibrous substance puzzled early settlers, who had no idea what it was, and could never have foreseen its numerous practical uses and enormous industrial potential a century later, nor its future health implications.' "

"John Campbell, a Scottish missionary who founded the Klaarwater mission station in 1813, described its characteristics and potential in a book about his travels,

"Some of us walked after breakfast to examine the asbestos rocks, where we found plenty of that rare mineral between strata of rocks. That which becomes, by a little beating, soft as cotton, is all of Prussian blue... I found some of the colour of gold, but not soft, or of a cotton texture like the blue; some I found white, and brown, and green... Had this land been known to the ancients in the days of imperial Rome, many a mercantile pilgrimage would have been made to the Asbestos Mountains in Griqualand. Were the ladies' gowns in England woven of this substance, many lives would annually be saved, that are lost by their dress catching fire."

"There are six different silicate minerals found in nature, consisting of thin long fibrous crystals. Each strand contains microscopic fibrils. Asbestos is extremely heat resistant, a superb electrical insulator, and came to be widely used as a building material."

"However, the tiny fibrils can be inhaled into the lungs, lodging in the bronchiolar alveoli, affixing themselves to interstitial spaces, and forming asbestos bodies within the lungs. Exposure to asbestos can cause cancerous mesothelioma,asbestosis, and pleural plaques. Not until the 1960's were these serious health risks recognized, after years of use and medical damage to miners, their families, and users alike."

"Dr. Henderson has planned part of his strategy for investigating the Bakerton site, an enormous mine which that has operated since 1893. At first open-cast quarrying was used; and underground mining began around 1918. Miners inhaled asbestos fibers, carried them home on their clothes, the material drifted in the air."

"Pleural endothelioma was recognized in patients presenting around this time, but even in the mid-1950's local doctors still mistook asbestosis for cancer metastasizing from other areas of the body. It took several decades before full recognition of asbestos' toxicity by the international medical community resulted from doctors' scattered, disjointed, yet repeated observations of harmful physical effects from asbestos exposure."

"Today, the towers of its conveyor system stand rusting like an abandoned ski lift, and the extensive buildings are falling into disrepair. The company which operated Bakerton was financially wiped out from paying medical claims of miners for physical damage and ongoing illnesses. They filed for bankruptcy to escape the burden of cleaning up their industrial site, where asbestos fibers still float about on a windy day."

"Environmental mitigation is the focus of Dr. Henderson's dig. A very old graveyard exists on the property, and its inhabitants likely bear evidence of asbestosis' horrific effects-"

At this point, Booth interrupted her. Engrossed in her subject, Brennan blinked a few times at the sound of his voice.

"You're not gonna spend Thanksgiving week cuttin' into mouldering bodies, Bones! That just doesn't go well with turkey and dressing!"

Brennan smiled indulgently at her husband. Oh no, we're not exuming or dissecting any remains on this trip; it's strictly surveying, observing, measuring; no goopy body parts involved to gross you out, Booth, I can assure you."

She grinned to herself as he muttered, "I'm glad you didn't bring this up in the middle of breakfast!"

"I've made reservations from D.C. to New York, to Cape Town, to Kimberly, the capital of Northern Cape Province. The flight will take 22 hours; we'll have four days to assess the Bakerton site, and the weekend to sightsee as well. I can't tell you how spectacular the scenery and natural beauty is!" she enthused.

Two weeks later, Booth and Brennan boarded American Airlines Flight 6324, secured their carry-on luggage and settled into their seats. Other business-class passengers filtered through the cabin searching for their seats. A tall sandy-haired man walked slowly down the spacious aisle, scrutinizing the seat number tags as he went. Ever alert to his surroundings, Booth felt his sniper senses tingle and studied the passenger's face. He nudged his wife, who had already started listening to an audio-book. Brennan pulled a cushioned plug from her ear and looked at him curiously.

"Look who's coming down the aisle, Bones," the agent said softly.

Brennan's face brightened with recognition. Her last conversation with the man had been far more pleasant than some of his insistent exchanges with her during a case. Jesse Kane had doggedly sought her assistance in authenticating some bone fragments as his missing father. His unwavering pursuit of her expertise had driven her slightly batty in the process. Yet, in the end, he had offered her sound advice regarding her own missing parents, and kept in touch from time to time since then.

He heaved a canvas duffle bag into the overhead bin and seated himself one row ahead of the couple in an aisle seat across the carpeted walkway. Booth waited until the man had fastened his seatbelt, then reached over and tapped his elbow. Jesse Kane turned around with a puzzled expression on his face, then broke into a smile.

"Agent Booth, Dr. Brennan, what a surprise! What brings you aboard a flight to New York?"

"We're heading to Africa for a week; our children are occupied with activities away from home, and we needed a break," Brennan replied.

"In Africa?" Jesse countered.

"A colleague of mine requested my help with a project in North Cape Province," she informed him. "What's keeping you busy these days? More missing persons to find?"

"Nope, I gave that up after working with you. I've become an investigative journalist and I'm on an assignment to cover an environmental clean-up in Kimberly, as luck would have it. Looks like we're heading the same way," he told them. The lady in the aisle seat behind him tapped Jesse on the shoulder and asked if he'd like to trade seats to avoid a very stiff neck by the time they landed. He thanked her profusely and grinned at Brennan over his good luck. Carefully taking note of Booth's expression, he realized the man was smiling, rather than jealous like he might have expected.

"I guess we've got a couple hours to catch up with each other," Jesse remarked.

The captain's announcement interrupted his next comment, as the crew prepared for take-off.

Once airborne, the trio continued their conversation. Jesse had been hired by National Geographic Magazine to write about the Griqualand Mining Company site in Bakerton. It had been featured in an episode of "Mysteries of the Abandoned" televised the previous April, and the NatGeo programming director thought it would make an interesting subject for their magazine and website travel blog.

Jesse Kane's writing style was informative and captivating, and his online "EnviroTravel" editor felt it made a perfect match. One phone call to his former grad school housemate later, Mr. Kane had a new and intriguing assignment. Now made even more interesting by the coincidental presence of Dr. Brennan and her eagle-eyed FBI partner, he thought to himself.

Glancing at the couple more closely, he spotted matching gold bands on both their fingers. Ah, he thought, they're married.

"Looks like congratulations and wishes for your happiness together are in order; how long have you been hitched?"

"We're not horses, Mr. Kane," Brennan retorted. "We've been married eighteen years."

"My bad, Dr. Brennan. Didn't mean any offense; just wonderin'."

"None taken, Mr. Kane. Tell us more about your writing assignment," Brennan said.

"I'm investigating the negative effects of asbestos mining around Kimberly, South Africa. The mines have been closed for a while, but the atmosphere is still contaminated by loose fibers blowin' around."

"That's an interesting subject. I've read about that area," Brennan told him. "Did you ever resolve your father's situation?" she asked, redirecting the conversation after a meaningful glance at her husband.

A/N: This idea came to me during the program mentioned above, which aired last night. My writing time recently has been curtailed by planning a family wedding, which has now been delayed by the current corona virus situation. This writing challenge will let me focus on something other than how tired I am of being at home. As I'm sure many other Fanfiction members are!