A/N: I still own nothing. Please read and review!

Chapter 2

"Was that stack of cards not mine?"

Zack looked questioningly at Alex across the table as she organized the stack of cards she had gained into her original pile. "No," she replied, grinning. "Those were definitely mine."

"But I laid down a Jack," he argued. "And you laid down a seven. Those cards were mine."

"No, Zack," she said patiently. "I put down a seven before you put down the Jack, and then I put another seven on top, making it a sandwich. And I slapped the deck before you took the cards. So they're mine."

Zack grimaced. He was no good at slapping the deck; he had a stunning lack of hand-eye coordination. He also found it to be a very violent game, and he did not relish the thought of possibly harming Alex if he slapped her hand by accident. "I am terrible at this game," he murmured, laying down a five.

Alex laid down a five on top of it and slapped the deck. Zack moved as if to slap the deck himself, but he hesitated, resulting in her victory. Looking at him curiously, she asked, "Zack… are you afraid to slap the deck?"

"No, of course not," he said quickly.

Too quickly.

"You're a shitty liar, Zack," she told him, smiling again. "You are afraid. But why? I won't hurt you. I promise."

"That's not what I'm worried about," he told her. "I am more than capable of taking a few slaps to win the game."

"Then why don't you ever slap the deck?" she asked. "You were about to on that one, and you could've been me to it; you would've beat me to it. But you stopped. Why?"

"It is a scientifically proven fact that men are more prone to be stronger physically than women," he said simply.

"Oh," she said, realizing dawning upon her face as her blue eyes grew wide. "You're not afraid of getting slapped. You're afraid of slapping me."

"No, I'm not!" he cried defensively.

"Yes, yes you are," she said. Laying her hand palm down on the table, she said, "Then prove it. Slap me."

He brought his hand up to as if he was going to, glaring at her all the while. He brought his hand down quickly, but before he hit her, he moved it to the side. "I won't," he said.

"If you are not afraid to slap me, then it's illogical for you to refuse to when I'm encouraging you to," she teased, her blue eyes sparkling.

He groaned to himself as he realized that she had used logic against him. "Just keep playing the game."

Grinning crookedly, she laid down another card and said, "That's what I thought."

TLTBTLTB

"Alex, can I ask you a personal question?"

Zack looked at Alex curiously across the table during lunch. She was in the process of forking a piece of chicken into her mouth, but she paused in mid-air to chuckle. "What kind of question is that, Zack?" she asked. "I've spent pretty much every minute of the last three months with you. Of course you can."

He breathed a sigh of relief; he needed more information on a certain subject, and he was terrified that she would refuse. "Only if I can ask you a personal question in return."

"That sounds fair," he replied reasonably. Inhaling sharply, he asked, "What did it feel like to be depressed and suicidal?"

Her face, which had been wearing a jovial expression moments before, quickly became expressionless. "I'm not sure what you're asking."

"Why did you want to commit suicide?" he asked. "I know about your father, but… I'm asking what your emotions were, I suppose."

She sucked in a long, deep breath before she replied. She bowed her head and said, "It felt like I was drowning in everything that was happening to me. After the normal grieving period, I had no day-to-day reason to feel depressed, but yet… I couldn't bring myself to be happy. My grades were slipping and I started talking to my friends less and less. I didn't like where my life was going, but I felt like I didn't have any control over it. And I hated that feeling more than anything else." Looking up to meet his eyes, she continued, "In fact, I hated that feeling so much that I started doing something that made me feel like I had control over something." Slowly, she rolled up her sleeves. He had noticed that she always wore long-sleeved shirts or a jacket with long-sleeves, no matter what the temperature in the asylum was. As she exposed the pale skin of her arms to him, he saw the faint scars running across her arms.

"There is no possible way that those scars could have been caused by some accident," he said, fingering one gently before quickly retracting his finger. "Either you did this to yourself or someone did this to you on purpose."

"The former," she said softly. "It let me feel like I had control over something, even if it was destructive. And… after feeling so much emotional pain, I forced myself to become numb. But I found that being numb only terrified me far more than pain did. But I couldn't make myself feel again."

"So you sought physical pain," he finished for her.

She nodded. "My best friends were, and still are, guys. They're great guys, all of them, but they're not the type to tell me how much they care every day. So it was fairly easy for me to convince myself that I didn't matter to them. And I decided that life was more of a con than it was a pro."

"How did they… how did they stop you?" he queried, surprised by how horrifying he found the thought of Alex's death to be.

"They figured it out," she shrugged. "Actually, Kevin did, but Andrew and Seth came with him to stop me. They had noticed my odd behavior over the past few months and my refusal to wear anything but long sleeves. I had a baseball jersey that I loved… my father gave it to me that last time we went to Fenway Park together to watch the Red Sox play. And I gave it to Kevin, telling him that he would get more use out of it than I would. He was confused at first, because he was a Braves fan. But eventually, he put together two and two. He realized why I always wore long sleeves, why I was so quiet and withdrawn, and why I was giving him my jersey. He called Andrew and Sepp and they rushed over. They got there just in time to stop me. I had just swallowed the pills. They called 911 and rushed me to the hospital. They were able to save me."

After a few moments of silence between them, he told her softly, "I'm glad."

"What?"

"I'm glad… that they saved you," he told her. "I'm really glad, actually."

She smiled softly at him. "So," she said, "it's my turn to ask you a personal question."

"Ask away."

"Did you kill him?" she asked. He opened his mouth to reply, but she cut him off quickly. "Look, before you answer, you should know that I want you to be completely and totally honest with me. It won't change our relationship at all, no matter what the answer is, Zack. We will still be friends, even if you did kill him. Okay?"

"Okay," he said, nodding. "No. I did not physically kill him. But I gave Gormigon the information that led directly to his murder, and I would have killed him, at that point in time, if I had been ordered to. So I might as well have."

"No, Zack," she told him. "No. All that's not important. You may have done it yourself back then, but the important thing is that you didn't and that you wouldn't do it now."

"Right," he affirmed, nodding his head. He had the strange urge to make sure that she knew that he was not a murderer. For some reason, Alex viewing him as a murderer was worse than anything the justice system could possibly do to him. He began to realize that he had a very strong emotional and physical attachment to her. He was still physically attracted to her, and he began to depend on her to make his day. He spent every moment of everyday with her, and his emotions fed off of hers. He only wanted what was best for her, and he found that she made him want to be a better person. If he were still in the clutches of Gormigon, her request alone could save him. "Tell me about Kevin, Andrew, and Seth."

"All right," she said slowly. "Kevin is blonde and he's a pitcher in baseball. He loves the Braves. He loves roller coasters. He can make mean jokes sometimes, but he really means well. Andy… Andy is tall and has brown hair. He's extremely smart, and he's a really good listener. He also plays baseball and basketball. Seth… well, there's no other words for it, he's a computer geek. He is the master of all things electronic. He's tall and has brown hair, like Andy, only taller. And he's really sweet. He's great at listening and giving advice. When all four of us are together… it's crazy. We just have a good time. But when one of us needs anything, the others all come through."

"That sounds like an ideal symbiotic relationship for all three of you," he commented, glad that she had such good friends.

"Tell me about your friends," she said. "Tell me about Dr. Brennan, Booth, Angela, Cam, and Hodgins."

"Okay," he said. "Dr. Brennan is a very gifted forensic anthropologist. She was my teacher until I earned my doctorate and got my own job at the Jeffersonian. Her partner is Special Agent Booth, who's with the FBI. He's a very stereotypical Alpha male, and he bases his conclusions on conjecture rather than fact. However, it seems to work for him. He and Dr. Brennan work well together, and Angela is constantly making comments about something called 'UST' that I don't understand-"

"Unresolved sexual tension," she told him, grinning. "Sounds like Angela thinks that Dr. Brennan and Booth need to jump each other."

"I don't know what that means," he said, blinking at her.

"It means they are attracted to each other and need to have sexual intercourse," she explained to him.

"Oh," he said. "I see. Continuing, Cam was made the Head of Forensics about two years ago, and she's a very direct but gently kind of person. Angela is an artist, and she relies heavily on her emotions. She was dating Hodgins, who analyzed bugs and slime and other particulates, but he told me a few months ago that they broke up." Looking up at her with round eyes, he told her, "He really loves her."

"That's terrible," she said. "That's just plain terrible."

"What is love?" Zack asked abruptly a few moments later.

"Oh, jeez," she said. "I'm not really sure how to explain this, Zack. I'm thinking this is another conversation for another day, eh?"

"Okay," he nodded, continuing to eat. Zack was not a believer in love, or in emotional relationships, really, but he was beginning to question what kind of attachment he had to Alex. Once one of them was released from the asylum, what were the chances that they would see each other again? Of course, they could keep in touch. He certainly would. But what if talking him to brought back bad memories for her? He wouldn't want to do that. He only wanted Alex to be happy. But what if she was in trouble? She had been in the asylum for a while; what if she needed help finding a home and a job once she was released? Of course he would help her. But would she want his help?

And the most prominent question on his mind was whether or not her attachment to him was as strong as his attachment to her.