A/N: Woe is me!! My recording messed up, leaving me with only the last half of tonight's eppy! So, in order to console myself, I decided to write this. Just a cutesy little one shot with no real plot and starring my Zach…ok, he's not mine, none of them are, but still. Enjoy!!
Zach's new friend
"I need something that won't require a lot of time. I'm very busy."
Zach eyed the clerk, studying her as he spoke.
"I also need something that can get by with very little maintenance. Oh, and something that won't create a mess. I live above a garage."
The clerk narrowed down the list in her head.
"I would also like something smart and small."
"Ok, I think I've got a really good idea of what you need." The clerk disappeared and came back with a small box with air holes. Zach peeked into it.
"Perfect. What else do I need?"
He left the shop awhile later, laden down with boxes and bags. Hodgins was waiting for him.
"Did you buy the whole store? What'd you get, lemme see." He took the box with air holes from Zach and looked inside it.
"Nice! Don't let Angela see it though. She'll freak."
"I don't intend to. He's staying in my room."
"Good." They got into the car, and drove back to Hodgins' place, and Zach trooped up to his room above the garage, and sat the boxes down with a thud.
Immediately, he began to unpackage things. They couldn't just stay there in the front entrance. First, there was the cage. Zach snapped on all the little platforms with no trouble at all. Wait, something didn't look right. Oh. He unsnapped them all, turned them around, and snapped them back in the right places.
After the cage was assembled, he walked into the kitchen with the water bottle, filled it up, and screwed the lid on. Then he unscrewed the lid as the first time he'd put it on unevenly. Once the lid was in place, he attached the bottle to the side of the cage.
Then he tackled the bag of sleeping material fluff. He pulled on the bag, but the thing wouldn't open. He tried tearing it with his teeth. Nothing. He went into the kitchen to look for scissors, but couldn't find any. Hodgins had been here. He borrowed things and never put them back in the proper place. It could take Zach days to find the scissors. He took the bag of fluff back into the front room, and pulled and pulled at it.
Finally it opened all of a sudden, ripping all the way down the middle and causing bits of fluff to fly around the room. Most of it was in a pile on the floor. Zach threw the bag in the trash, gathered up the fluff as best he could, and placed it all in a corner of the cage.
He was about to move on to the next thing when he noticed there were still bits of fluff on the floor. Instead of simply picking them up, he moved to the closet and pulled out a vacuum cleaner, which he then used to make certain all the fluff was cleaned up. As long as he was doing the front room, he figured he might as well vacuum the rest of the place too.
After putting the vacuum away in the closet, he fished a ceramic food dish out of one of the sacks and placed it in the cage. Then he struggled to open the bag of food without having a repeat of the fluff. The food bag tore, but only made a little mess. Zach poured some food into the dish, and retrieved the vacuum out of the closet again.
After thoroughly vacuuming the room again, he put the rest of the food into a container, which he set on the kitchen counter. Then he pulled two more things out of the sack. The first was a wheel which he placed in the cage across from the fluff. The second was a plastic ball which he placed in a corner next to the cage.
After all this, he surveyed the cage. Everything looked ready. He brought the box with air holes over to the cage, opened the box, and reached in to pull out its contents.
He held the rat for a moment, looking at its brown eyes. They were intelligent eyes. The clerk had made the right choice.
"Welcome to your new home, Albert," he said. The rat's nose twitched. Zach placed him gently in the cage, and petted him as he nosed around his new habitat. He had the feeling that he and Albert were going to get along just fine.
A/N: As I said, just a cutesy piece written to console myself.