Title: For the Greater Good

Rating: T

Spoilers: Season three finale and season four.

Disclaimer: HA!

Characters: the Squints, Zack, Dr. Foley, and this new Vincent guy from the side.

Summary: He had done it for the greater good-all lives over one life-but his greater good only consisted of five people, and someone needed to see that (my idealized wishes for season four and the truth of the finale).

Author's Note: I had no idea how to deal with Zack's hands so I created some odd hybrid of prosthetics that I'd seen. Someone please help me if you know how it would work. I'm also using the sides from season four to know what's going on in the lab. The dialogue for the lab in some cases will be the dialogue from the sides so BEWARE of SPOILERS.

Chapter Two

"…Covered in spam, and we were testing the rate of decomposition to see if there was any extra accelerate used in the car to fuel the fire. Hodgins suggested spam because we couldn't find any large pigs quickly enough, and I think we had quite a few cans in his kitchen. We used the amount of gasoline that would've been in the car judging by past receipts for gas, but the heat of the fire wasn't intense enough to burn the spam completely. Dr. Saroyan didn't think it was all right, but she only insisted that we ask her beforehand..."

Dr. Foley had learned more about spam in the last hour than she had ever cared to know. Her head rested upon her hands in a comfortable pursuit of his words, but she didn't display the normal glaze that usually clouded the eyes of Zack's common listeners. She suspected that he wouldn't have caught her boredom if she had been bored, and his dialogue would've continued no matter what.

"…At the Christmas party didn't expect the high concentration of alcohol in the punch and by the end of the night several people had discarded their clothes in odd places around the Jeffersonian. I found a bra on a light over the lab. The next Christmas Dr. Brennan caught us, and Hodgins ended up getting us all in quarantine for the holiday, but it was very nice. We exchanged gifts that we had made in the lab. If Dr. Saroyan had been in charge at that time I don't think she would've been amused by the situation… "

That was the fifth time Dr. Saroyan had come up in a conversation about someone else. Foley made another tick mark-this time in green-on her paper. Five green lines, seven lines of blue for Brennan, and twelve lines of red for Hodgins marred the paper she'd found under her files. Her multicolored pen had been a joke gift years ago that she had never found a use for until Zack Addy.

"…Ambrosia salad was spread out across the lab liberally, but in the expected spray pattern. I hadn't calculated the amount that would escape, however, and Dr. Saroyan didn't look happy about the salad getting on her clothes. I saw her a few hours later, and she seemed upset when I tried to get a piece of the salad out of her hair."

She would never feed him macaroni and cheese again if this was the result.

"…Missed Goodman, but I like Dr. Saroyan. She gave us nicknames, and I was Zackarooni. Hodgins was Hodgepodge, but Dr. Brennan didn't have name. Dr. Saroyan never let us give her one either. I hadn't had a name other than Zack before that. In high school they gave me a nickname, but I never thought that they meant it in the friendly bonding way that those names were meant for. . ."

He held eye contact throughout the entire diatribe. His eyes darted away only when he remembered the now cold bowl of instant macaroni and cheese in his hands, and even then he rarely brought the spoon to his mouth-he was halfway to taking a bite when he dropped the spoon against the resilient plastic again.

"When did you last see them?"

He stopped talking then. His eyes dropped, his hands stilled completely, and she had the feeling that he had lost any appetite for his favorite food that he may have possessed before she spoke. It had to be done at some point.

"They were waiting for me when I got out of surgery." She let the absence of sound prompt his next words. "I saw them through the observation window right before I fell asleep due to the anesthetic."

"You miss them." She did not allow for a question which she knew would confuse him.

"Yes."

"Why would you do something that would ultimately distance you from them?"

"The logic I used to guide my actions was flawed."

Downcast, his eyes stayed on his fingers as he tightened them around the small bowl in his palms. The scarred flesh stretched underneath the cage of metal and plastic, but his old wounds refused to reopen as he twisted his fingers together. The metal hit metal and the ringing that dulled the silence only waited for the accompaniment of the pen scratching against paper before dying off. The flames were still there, but they were under the surface of the skin.

"You're going to ask me to leave and return to my room, aren't you?"

"Yes, I am."

"Thank you for the macaroni and cheese."

"You're welcome."

He didn't look up from his hands as he walked out the door still clutching the bowl and plastic spoon. By the time the door had closed the flourished signature of Dr. Vivian Foley was done. Tomorrow, the prescription for antidepressants would appear in the files next to age old reports by school psychologist and nurses, and the pills would grace the cart of prescriptions that traveled the halls in the early hours. She thought of it as a preemptive strike.

Crazy people make sane people crazy.

He swallowed the pills with no complaint. The orderlies passed him by, and he was left staring at the small cup in his hand.

"What do I do with this?" He glanced back at the trashcan-less room. No answer came, and he placed the cup on the floor by his bed before turning back to his notebook.

Hodgins had gathered them together at the hospital and Booth had feigned deafness as he watched them plot.

"We need to go through his stuff so that his family doesn't find anything damning. Let them think that it was simply due to his reliance on logic, but I'll be damned if I let my friend go down like that."

"Hodgins, he killed someone."

"Dr. Saroyan, no offense, but there's killing someone, and then there's killing someone with stuff in your apartment that will kill your family to find later."

"Zack would want us to protect his family." Brennan hadn't spoken since removing her hand from the glass, and now she spoke with her eyes still on Zack.

"Honey, if you're all right with this I'll go." Angela glanced back at Hodgins. "The worst we'll find is probably something you gave him anyways."

He swallowed the pills with no complaint. The orderlies passed him by, and he was left staring at the cup in his hand.

He placed it on top of the cup already on his floor.

"Did you check the bedroom?"

"Yeah, and do you know what he had under his mattress?"

"Do I want to know?"

"Booth, close your eyes while you walk over here, but you've got to see this." Hodgins' voice carried across the rooms and everyone stumbled out into the hallway to see. Dr. Saroyan stayed perched on the second shelf of the closet, but she could see the brackets held in Hodgins' hands.

"Are those March Madness brackets?"

"From the last seven years. Look! He's been right every time except 2002 when he got the final four wrong. He's never bet on them or gotten money for them."

"He's doing my brackets from now on."

"What is March Madness? Is it about the March Hare?" With a gentle tug, Angela pulled Brennan away from the boys.

"It's a guy thing, sweetie."

He swallowed the pills with no complaint. The orderlies passed him by, and he was left staring at the cup in his hand.

He placed it on top of the cups already on his floor.

She was kneeling in the closet when they heard the sob. Hodgins and Booth muttered 'Angela' while Angela and Brennan muttered 'Hodgins.' The emotional artist and best friend stereotypes did not extend to her, but her next few sobs were controlled and quiet.

The white papers were folded and prematurely aged by constant handling, but she could make out the Jeffersonian letterhead. The words were not tenderhearted or personal. The letters were not meant for collection. The writer had never expected to find them here. The inner office memos had been meant for reading and understanding.

The box of memos was light and only the size of a shoebox, but the cardboard included every single memo, letter and post-it note she had ever left for him.

"The big bowl of microwavable mac and cheese is mine. Eat it and you're fired, Zackarooni."

"I need the photos of the body before you leave."

"You spelled my name wrong on the report. Fix it."

"You and Hodgins owe me for dry cleaning my suit. Your half is 2.50"

He swallowed the pills with no complaint. The orderlies passed him by, and he was left staring at the cup in his hand.

He placed it on top of the cups already on his floor.

Her name was written in block letters across the front. There were four other boxes: Dr. Brennan, Hodgins, Booth and Angela. She smiled at the title before Brennan's name, and her eyes darted back to her name.

"Cam."

He had never called her that.

He swallowed the pills with no complaint. The orderlies passed him by, and he was left staring at the cup in his hand.

He placed it beside the cups already dotting his floor and the orderlies eyed the castle of plastic cups warily from the doorway when they passed back by him.

-TBC-