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Regardless
"Zach…"
The evidence was irrefutable. A student of his caliber would have been able to recognize that dentures of human teeth were used to create the bite marks found on the victim.
"Why?"
An unspoken question. She knew the answer. He believed his logic was sound. It's fairly easy to justify any actions performed based on a well-founded rationale, and Zach had it. However, in attempting to follow the doctrine provided him, he had failed. When life is lived based solely on rational thinking, a certain degree of conscience is always lost. If Zach had been completely invested in his reasoning, he would not have bothered to save anyone. But he did.
She rested her forehead on his, analyzing his features. The thin lips pursed, the straight brows, only slightly compressed, the almond eyes staring calmly back at hers. He was intelligent; he knew what the consequence would be. Zach had come to terms with it. But beneath the brave exterior, behind the emotionless façade, was a boy that was never fully accepted, foreign to his family, odd to peers, who was about to be permanently removed from the one place he ever really felt he was worth something; and he was scared.
It was sad, but not worth crying over. She saved her tears for only the most horrific of memories, the most trying of times. Zach was not going to be murdered by the civil court, nor was he going to a prison where any number of convicts might rape or otherwise harm him; he was going to end up in a mental institution, and everyone could visit whenever they deemed fit. So no tears graced her cheek.
Still, she looked into the eyes of her student, her colleague, her friend, a kindred, rational spirit in a world where most acted based upon the urges of their hearts. If she had ever had a son, she would have wanted him to be like Zach. He reminded her so much of herself. The difference was that, unlike him, she had tempered her straightforward thinking with morality. She remembered the time he had protested her killing some skin-eating beetles in order to analyze the contents of their stomachs for organ fragments, protesting, in response to her general grouping of them all, "They have names". What had caused him to eliminate that inner sense of right versus wrong? Did his victim not have a name and an identity, so quickly destroyed by Zach's knife-wielding hand?
He would have been content to remain forever with his mentor leaning over him, a constant protector in a world that ceased to make sense. But that was not conceivable.
"I'll always be proud of you, Zach."
Dr. Brennan left the room.