Chapter 21 – Causing a Biological Contamination Makes People Hate You

She was dressed as an elf. They were both dressed as elves. Zack had known ahead of time that they would be dressed in those costumes, but he was still enjoying the circumstances. He was also greatly amused by the reactions their outfits were getting from the other employees of the Jeffersonian. Hodgins had finally been able to make him understand why it was validating rather than alarming to realize that other men and women were sexually attracted to his girlfriend.

He tried to think of something to say to her when he first saw her standing in the door to the room where he and Hodgins were working, but for what was probably the first time in his entire life, he was rendered speechless. Not only because she was beautiful, though. It was true; she was. But it was more than that. It was an unempirical, illogical feeling that nothing could go wrong in his life as long as she was standing there in that doorway and watching him with that smile on her face.

The improbabilities of that statement were incredibly overwhelming and impossible to ignore. But still he could not escape it. His mind would not allow him to return to his normal level of rationality and empiricism. He was not entirely certain if it was a good thing or a bad thing. He was only certain that it made him feel normal. And that was what he had always wanted, to some degree.

When Georgia left her post at the doorway and walked into the room, Hodgins stopped working and turned to take in the sight. Zack thought that maybe Hodgins was starting to regret saying that having a supremely attractive girlfriend and watching other men stare was a very satisfying way of feeling better than them.

Feelings of envy were only natural, Zack could assume. For though Hodgins was, as Booth noted, "quite the ladies' man", and though he had many dates lined up throughout the week, he had never had a steady girlfriend. And if he had a steady girlfriend, Zack thought that it would be difficult for her to be as wonderful as Georgia. But that was one of those thoughts which one did not speak aloud, and so he just smiled at Georgia and sent a subtle sidelong look in Hodgins' direction. He hoped that Hodgins understood the reasoning behind that particular facial expression.

Hodgins had informed him that it was more satisfying if other men understood just how improbable it was for a girl like Georgia to like him. Zack had chosen to ignore the insults inherent in that particular statement and instead had listened only to the positives. It was another thing that Hodgins was likely beginning to regret. Zack doubted that he had predicted how successful his attempt at further humanizing Zack would be. It was likely that he was figuratively kicking himself for introducing Zack to the concept at all.

"Aren't we looking ethereal tonight, Georgia," Hodgins said, accompanying his compliment with a low whistle. Zack frowned at him incredulously.

"Ethereal?"

"Yeah. I mean, look at her."

Zack sighed and said, "I should have thought of that."

Georgia laughed and kissed him on the cheek.

"Thank you, Hodgins," she said. "And Zack, no pressure on the thesaurus. Anything you call me is good enough."

He smiled at Hodgins smugly. Hodgins just laughed. Georgia, meanwhile, ignored them both.

"So what are you doing in here? Angela made some vague reference to cute boys doing nerdy things, and I think we all know how much I love that."

Hodgins whistled again, but this time it was different and more under his breath than before. It meant something different. Zack just didn't know what.

"Well, I think we know what kind of drunk you are," Hodgins remarked. "Lucky you, Zack."

Zack wasn't entirely sure what that was supposed to mean, but Hodgins' tone suggested that it was a good thing. He decided to take it at face value rather than ask questions. It was safer that way. There was less potential for embarrassment.

"I'm trying to fix the voice recognition on my robot," he said instead, to Georgia. He and Hodgins were not actually doing real work, although he thought that perhaps Dr. Brennan was under the impression that they were. Zack was working on his personal robot, while Hodgins was carefully brewing a generous amount of pure alcohol in order to – as he put it – 'liven up the festivities'.

They were obviously both very important scientific ventures.

"Why, what's wrong with it?" Georgia asked, taking a sip of whatever was in the cup she was holding.

Zack turned to the robot and yelled "stop!" The robot did a somersault. "Stop!" It did another roll. "Turn!" It stopped.

Hodgins and Georgia laughed uproariously. It was probable that they were laughing at his comical expression of frustration rather than the robot's overall ineptness. Although he supposed that both could be quite humorous. He was just less adept at seeing the humor in the robot's plight when he was so exasperated.

Hodgins then remarked, "your robot reminds me of you. You tell it to turn, it stops. You tell it to stop, it turns. You ask it take out the garbage, it watches reruns of Firefly."

Zack glared at him.

"After I fix the voice recognition protocols, this is going to blow those gomers at MIT away."

Hodgins shook his head and walked over to check on the alcohol.

"This is pretty cool," Georgia said, stepping closer to examine the robot. "I'd like to say that it's amazing that you built something like this, but to be honest, it's not all that surprising. You are a genius."

"You know," Hodgins said bitterly. "Everyone around here thinks you've been good for Zack, but I'm the only one who sees the truth. He was already a pompous jackass. You turned him into an egotistical bastard."

Zack knew that Hodgins was only joking, so he laughed. But at the same time he had to admit that there was some truth to that statement. He had always been assured of his mental acuity, but only through Georgia was he able to discover his proficiency in other areas, as well. He had never felt so confident. And that was why he firmly believed that she was good for him. Confidence was normal. Men like Agent Booth were overflowing with it.

Then again, Georgia liked him. Not Agent Booth.

He was more than just slightly smug about that fact.

"If this is him being an egotistical bastard, then I don't think that anyone has anything to complain about," Georgia pointed out.

Hodgins rolled his eyes and changed the subject with, "yeah, we got about half-a-liter of pure alcohol here. Dump it in the eggnog and we've got the best Christmas party in history."

"Hey, don't change the subject. I think I know why you have a problem with Zack feeling good about himself. You're just jealous that you used to be able to brag about being the one who's good with the ladies, but now Zack has a girlfriend and you don't."

She arched her eyebrows at him. Hodgins recognized the challenge and rose to the occasion.

"Oh yeah? A steady girlfriend who he hasn't even had sex with yet."

"If that were true, it would be a low blow," Zack pointed out dryly. It was a fairly tentative attempt at a sardonic reply, and he believed that he managed to pull it off adequately.

Hodgins gasped.

"If that were true? You didn't tell me you two had sex!"

"I urinated a half hour ago. Did you want to hear about that, too?" Georgia asked mockingly. Hodgins' offended and disturbed expression turned into one of horror.

"Did you just say urinated? Oh my God, Georgia's turning you into a human being, and you're returning the favor by turning her into a robot. This is so freaking weird. But seriously, did you guys really have sex? Actual sex? Normal sex?"

"Several times between two days ago and now," Georgia affirmed proudly.

"Well…Jesus. How was it?"

Zack hurriedly whispered, "you don't have to answer that."

"It was good. Great, even. Naomi from paleontology was clearly the problem in that coupling."

Hodgins scoffed and walked out of the room, unable to deal with the Twilight Zone-like environment any longer. Zack waited until he was gone before turning to Georgia.

"I appreciate your lie."

"I wasn't lying, Zack. It was lovely. Awkward, yes. Different, definitely. But already, we're both improving. We're compatible, both sexually and otherwise. That's good news. And it's only going to get better."

"There is the old saying that practice makes perfect," Zack mused. "I've never given much thought to it because to be 'perfect' is a logical impossibility… but I think it's an appropriate thing to say in this situation."

"You're damn right it's appropriate," Georgia chuckled. She kissed him on the cheek again and the bells on her slippers jingled as she walked out of the room. "Now, come on. Let's follow Hodgins and continue grossing him out with stories about our new sex life."

She sashayed out of the room with an airy twirl that made her skirt fly out around her. The bells on her slippers, on her hat, all went crazy.

This was what Christmas was all about.

Zack thought that his heart was going to burst.

"Is that pure alcohol?"

Dr. Brennan was glaring at them in that way she had. It always made Zack feel like a baby animal being approached by a hawk.

He gulped, "yes, Dr. Brennan."

Hodgins sighed with exasperation and glared at Zack. Georgia just laughed and tried to hide it. She knew of Zack's secret fear of Dr. Brennan's disapproval. In fact, she had admitted to being intimidated by Dr. Brennan as well. She said that it was hard to see her as anything other than his boss; the woman who could effectively end his career if she wished. Of course, Dr. Brennan could appear to be at times a very cold and commanding woman. It was no wonder that Georgia was intimidated by her.

But Brennan was not as angry as her tone had initially indicated. She even grinned a minuscule amount before saying, "you really think Goodman is going to let you spike the eggnog after the Fourth of July fiasco?"

Hodgins paused and looked down at Brennan thoughtfully. Then, he turned to Zack.

"Uh, we may have to rethink."

Zack nodded hastily.

"I want to hear this story," Georgia whispered. Zack nodded again, but Dr. Brennan spoke up before they could make their exit.

"Zack, I need you to clean these bones," she said, barely looking up from the body of the man on the table below. Zack tried to employ the trick that Angela pulled on him in Wong Foo's the first time he went out with Georgia. It was a method of non-verbal communication by which the individual employing the technique indicated a target of conversation with their eyes and then transferred their gaze to an object of interest. In this case, the target of nonverbal conversation was Dr. Brennan. The object was Georgia. The hope behind the method was that he would not have to speak aloud the thought that he did not want to do work because he would rather spend time with his girlfriend. Instead, the idea would be communicated through eye contact and body language.

He looked at Georgia as pointedly as he was able, then turned to look at Dr. Brennan, then looked at Georgia again.

If Dr. Brennan understood his intended point, she simply did not care. She stared at him blankly.

He was not very good at reading body language, especially cues from facial expressions, but he had to guess that she was conveying the idea that she did not care about personal matters because he was supposed to be working. To Dr. Brennan, work was far more important than personal matters in any case.

It used to be true for Zack, as well. It wasn't until that exact moment that Zack realized how much his habits had changed.

"Now?" he asked pitiably. Dr. Brennan's expression did not waver. She did not say anything. She simply stood and continued to stare at him. It was probably intended to convey some sort of intimidating message, but Zack was unable to decipher what that message might be. The only message that he got from it was that it was indeed intimidating.

However, he was almost certain that the message would essentially amount to 'yes'.

"Burn," Hodgins laughed. He grabbed Georgia's arm and started to flee the scene with her, but Dr. Brennan was not finished.

"And I need you to search the clothing for insect evidence," she said.

Whether the smugness in her tone was in retaliation for laughing at him or not, Zack did not know. It was unlike Dr. Brennan to be petty and unprofessional, but due to his relationship with Georgia Zack had become exposed to many different aspects of interpersonal relationships. Thus, he had realized that Dr. Brennan could be incredibly defensive of him, sometimes. He appreciated it immensely in such situations.

"Jeez, Bones," said Agent Booth disbelievingly. "Merry Christmas."

Angela entered the lab area and tapped her slippered foot on the ground irritably.

"Okay, you people listen to me," she said. There is a party going on upstairs, okay? A Christmas party. We're going up there. We're going to talk to some people. We're going to sing some carols. We're going to drink some eggnog." She looked at Booth. "You are going to kiss me under the mistletoe on the lips." She looked at Zack and Hodgins. "I might kiss you guys under the mistletoe, too." She looked at Brennan. "Maybe even you in a festive, non-lesbian manner. But we are going to that party."

Brennan looked up at Angela, but did not move. Angela groaned. Zack and Hodgins took that as a sign that they were not going to get out of doing their work despite an admirable effort on Angela's part, and so they slunk away to do it, leaving Georgia standing alone on the walkway.

And then a few minutes later they were racing and shoving each other to cram into the decontamination shower before their skin melted off or their lungs filled with their own blood. There were many other potential scenarios, but Zack found he was most frightened when he considered the possibility of the aforementioned two. The alarm was ringing in Zack's ears, and he hoped to God that whatever was in the bone was not going to kill anyone.

Especially not him. Or Hodgins. Or even more especially Georgia.

Just as he and Hodgins were stripped down and jammed into the shower together in a most humiliating turn of events, Georgia ran into the room.

"What the hell happened?"

"Biological contamination," Zack answered, trying his best to shield himself from view behind Hodgins. It was one thing, being naked around her when they were in bed together. It was another thing entirely to be displayed under fluorescent lights in the shower with another man.

"Well clearly!"

She was yelling. He had never seen her so angry.

"It was my fault," Hodgins said, even though it wasn't. Not really. Only partly. Zack realized immediately that Hodgins was covering for him. It made him feel very positively towards his friend.

"I don't care whose fault it was! Are you guys okay?"

And then they both realized that she wasn't mad. She was scared.

For them.

For him.

Suddenly, he felt that he was okay with melting skin.