Disclaimer: Still not mine.

Zack leaned back on his elbows, appreciating the warmth of the early afternoon sun on his face. After a challenging morning of work for both of them, Cassie had asked him to join her out by the lake for a while, and he was glad now that he'd accepted.

"You look like a flower," Cassie said from beside him, laughter in her voice. "With your face turned toward the sun like that. I'll have to take you outside more often."

"I haven't had many opportunities to be outdoors," he admitted, thinking back to his tiny room at McKinley. "Several studies have shown that limiting exposure to sunlight can exacerbate a patient's existing depression."

"Like I said," she agreed, "I've got to get you outside more."

He tilted his head away from the sunlight, looking over at Cassie. She'd been working while he idled, and she was now surrounded by plucked flowers and grass stems.

"What are you doing?"

"Making daisy chains," she replied easily. "Do you want one? I'm almost finished with mine."

"What am I supposed to do with it?" he asked, and she giggled.

"Wear it, silly." She appraised him. "I'll make you a grass chain instead. It's less girly."

"All right," he agreed, uncertain why she would want him to wear a chain of grass but willing to play along.

He watched as she twisted the stems of the daisies together, clever fingers knotting them deftly into a long chain, and wondered where she'd learned to do that. Though he knew her very well in her present incarnation, he knew nothing about her past.

"Can I ask you a personal question?"

Cassie gave him a warm smile. "You can ask me anything, Zack."

"How did you end up here?"

She didn't answer right away, busying her fingers with finishing her daisy chain, and he wondered if he'd offended her.

"I killed a man," she said finally, her gaze still intently focused on the flowers. "He was a bad man, by anyone's definition, but I regret killing him."

"Why?" Zack asked sensibly. "Agent Booth has killed many people who could be considered bad. Dr. Brennan has killed several. I don't believe either of them regret their actions."

"Because I took away any chance he had to redeem himself," she replied, toying with the daisy chain. "I made it so that he'll never be able to atone for what he did."

"That…seems logical," he decided after a few moments. "Would you like me to share my reasons for incarceration in exchange for yours?"

That got a smile out of her, as his attempts at social niceties often did.

"I know what your file says," she told him, slipping the finished daisy chain onto her head like a crown. It was remarkably attractive on her. "And I know it's wrong."

"Oh?"

"You've never killed anyone." The statement was made in her most certain tone, suggesting that it was a fact she'd picked up via her psychic abilities. "People who've killed feel different to me. You never have…but you feel responsible anyway."

"I gave the killer advice on how to find his victim," he admitted. "I assisted him in cleaning the remains. I violated Dr. Brennan's trust and took remains from the lab for him, and I hid other remains there."

"Why?"

He considered the question. She wouldn't understand the complexities of the Master's logic; she had very high emotional intelligence, but her IQ was only slightly above average. Any explanation he gave her had to involve an emotional component if he wanted her to comprehend it.

"I thought I was helping to save the world," he offered at last. "He provided what appeared to be very solid logic demonstrating that assisting him would allow me to keep multitudes of people from dying."

"Including your friends," she said, dawning realization in her voice. "He told you that unless you helped him, your friends would be killed."

"And my family," he agreed, unsurprised that she'd picked up on that part of the story. "He knew them by name, and said that if he was aware of them, so was the enemy. He said that only he could protect them, and he would only do so if I assisted him."

"After your time in the Army…"

"I had become aware that people often have to make choice among several less than desirable options."

"He was the lesser of two evils," she interpreted, and he nodded.

She was silent for a few minutes, working on his grass chain. He went back to enjoying the sunlight and trying not to think about anything, with more success than he would have anticipated. Several of the therapists at McKinley had tried to convince him that sharing his story would make him feel better, but he'd dismissed their suggestions out of hand. Now, he wondered if he owed them an apology.

"You should tell Dr. Carrington what you told me," Cassie said finally, and he turned his head to look at her again. She smiled at him, slipping the finished grass chain around his neck. "I think it would help."

"It doesn't change what I did," he told her. She reached up with a piece of grass and tickled his nose, laughing when he jerked his head back in surprise.

"Yes, it does," she replied, abandoning her grass stems and flopping down next to him in the sunshine. Zack looked down at the grass chain around his neck, touching it carefully with one gloved finger. If Cassie thought it was important for him to tell Dr. Carrington, maybe he should. She was usually right about things like this.

"Knew you'd see it my way," she said drowsily, bumping his foot with hers in a companionable gesture, and he shook his head. She was also usually smug about being right.

"I heard that," Cassie told him, and he smiled.

"I intended you to."