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Chapter 5

"The shape of the pelvic bone indicates that the subject is female…"

Bones was bent over the table, carefully examining a set of remains, with Cam supervising. Booth, Angela, and Hodgins were also watching. She was interrupted by the sound of a throat being cleared. "Excuse me," said a voice. Everyone whirled around to face the speaker, a young woman with long black hair and blue eyes. "I'm Alexandra Simmons."

"Alex!" cried Hodgins. "Good to see you again."

"It's good to see you again, too, Hodgins," she replied, smiling. "Um… I'm Zack's…"

"Girlfriend," Hodgins put in for her. "She's Zack's girlfriend."

Everyone seemed to freeze. "Wait," said Booth. "Wait just a damn minute. Zack has a girlfriend?"

"Yeah," Hodgins said proudly. "He met her in the loony bin."

"Oh, God," Angela said, "well, that figures."

"I would greatly appreciate it if you would stop talking about me as if I'm not here," Alex deadpanned, the corners of her mouth quirking up into a smile.

Bones peeled off her gloves and stepped off the forensic platform. Shaking Alex's hand, she said, "It's nice to meet you, Alexandra. I'm Dr. Brennan."

"Oh, Zack's mentioned you a lot," she replied. "I'm pleased to meet you too, but please call me Alex."

"This is my partner, Special Agent Seeley Booth, that's Dr. Cam Saroyan, the head of forensics, and that is Angela Montenegro, who is in charge of facial reconstructions. And it appears that you have already met Dr. Hodgins."

"Yeah, we met when he visited Zack once," she said.

"How does Zack end up in the loony bin and come out with a girlfriend?" Booth wanted to know. "You know, I think I've just earned a whole new level of respect for the kid- that must take talent."

"Yeah, how exactly did that happen?" Angela asked, looking fascinated.

"What is this, Zackaroni's first girlfriend?" Cam interjected.

"No, there was Naomi from Paleontology," Hodgins informed her, at which Cam's eyebrows jumped off of her head.

"I'm sure Alex isn't here to tell us about her sexual relationship with Zack," Bones said.

"Sexual?" Alex echoed, raising her eyebrows. "Oh, no, no, no, we've barely just started dating. We are far from that."

"Can we please not put the images of a naked Zack in my head?" Booth pleaded, shielding his eyes with his hand. "I am scarred for life."

"But anyway, Dr. Brennan is right," Alex said. "I'm here because Zack has his psychiatric evaluation with Sweets tomorrow, which will determine whether or not he is released and put on probation here at the Jeffersonian."

"That's right," Cam said, realization dawning on her face. "It's been a year."

"And I'm thinking there's a pretty good chance that he'll be cleared," Alex said.
"Based on what evidence?" Bones asked.

Booth rolled his eyes and explained, "Sorry, Alex. She's just like that."

"No worries," she said, "Zack is, too. Based on the fact that he promised me he would admit that he did not physically kill the lobbyist and explain how his logic was flawed and mention to Sweets that he has developed a romantic relationship which will help him integrate further into the social world."

"Wait," Booth said, "Zack admitted to killing the lobbyist; he said he stabbed him in the heart."

"He didn't," Alex told him, shrugging. "I know he admitted to it, but he really didn't. He just said that because he gave Gormigon the information that led directly to his death; he considers that just as good as physically committing the murder himself."

"Had he told us that," Cam said slowly, "he might've gotten a lighter punishment."

"What's done is done," Booth told her.

"So Zack is mostly likely going to be cleared," Angela said, trying to get the conversation back on its original path. "Why does that bring you here?"

"I thought he would like to have dinner with you all tomorrow night," she said, her face brightening. "He mentioned a Chinese restaurant called Wong Foo's that I thought would be a good place to meet."

"That sounds great," Cam said, smiling. "I'll come."

"I'll be there," threw in Hodgins.

"I would love to attend such a dinner," Bones replied.

"I'm with Bones," Booth said.

"Of course I'll be there," Angela said. "I wouldn't want to miss our Zack coming out of the loony bin."

"Also, my friends Kevin, Seth, and Andy would like to come as well," Alex told them. "They've been wanting to meet Zack for quite some time now."

"Sure, I don't see a problem with that," Hodgins told her. "I got the impression that Zack wanted to meet your friends too."

"Cool," Alex said, grinning and nodding her head. "So… tomorrow night, Wong Foo's at seven o'clock sharp. I'll get there with Zack around half past seven."

TLTBTLTB

"Are you nervous?"

"Logically, I have no reason to be nervous, since you seem so certain that I'm going to be cleared by Dr. Sweets," Zack replied. However, the look in his brown eyes betrayed his true emotions.

"That's not what I asked you, Zack," she replied, rolling her eyes and moving to the other side of the table so that she was sitting next to him instead of across from him. She rested her head on his shoulder and he instinctively wrapped an arm around her shoulders. "I don't care whether or not it makes sense for you to be nervous; are you nervous or not?"

"Yes," he replied softly, as if he were ashamed of admitting that he wasn't being completely logical. "I am nervous. If Dr. Sweets doesn't clear me tomorrow, it will mostly likely be another six months to a year before I have another chance for a psychiatric evaluation. And… I really want to be released from here."

"Why?" Alex asked, raising her head to look at him curiously. "You didn't seem to mind it too much before. You seemed to think… that you deserved to be in here."

"I did think that, and I still do," he said, blushing and ducking his head. "But now… my desire to be with you overwhelms my guilt. This asylum was tolerable as long as you were here with me. Now that you've been released… I just want to be with you."

"Zack, that is probably the sweetest thing you've ever said to me," she told him, grinning and punching him playfully in the arm.

"You know, among males, half-hearted fighting is often a form of play," he informed her.

"Stop analyzing every single thing I do, Zack," she told him with a sigh. "I'm not a culture for you to immerse yourself in or anything. Can't you just trust your heart on this one?"

"I'm not sure what my heart is trying to say," he told her, blinking his large brown eyes at her.

"Don't think about it so much," she said. "Just go with it."

Smiling faintly, he leaned in toward her, brushing his lips against hers. Gently, she cupped the back of his neck and deepened the kiss, slowly slipping her tongue inside his mouth. He moaned and wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her closer to him. Her small hands cautiously slipped beneath his uniform shirt and her lithe fingers brushed the skin of his abdomen. He gasped and pulled away slightly, panting and resting his forehead against hers so that their noses were touching. "You know," she said, "you should really just go with it more often."

"I don't know what that means," he said, looking confused.

Chuckling, she told him, "It means that I liked that."

"Oh," he said simply. "Perhaps I should compile a dictionary containing the meanings of the different phrases you use."

"Zack," she told him firmly, "don't. Just… don't. That's far too weird."

"Can I ask you something, Alex?" he asked her, looking at her curiously.

"Sure, go ahead," she told him.

"Are you a virgin?" he asked.

"Whoa, I was not expecting that to come out of your mouth," she chuckled. Looking at him, she said, "No, I'm not a virgin, Zack."

"Neither am I," he told her earnestly. "So we're on roughly equal footing."

"No, Zack," she told him, shaking her head. "We're not. I… just forget it." She extracted herself from his arms and scooted her chair away from him.

Frowning and knitting his eyebrows together, he scooted his chair closer to her and hesitantly placed a hand on her back. "Alex, what did I do to upset you?" he asked.

Abruptly, she stood and said, "Nothing, Zack. Don't worry about it. It's not your fault."

With that, she left, leaving a very confused and worried Zack in her wake.

TLTBTLTB

At around one that morning, Zack woke to the sound of someone rapping on his door. He shuffled toward it sleepily and opened it, surprised to see Booth standing in front of him. "Agent Booth, what are you doing here?" he asked, yawning and rubbing his eyes.

"Well, Alex showed up at the Jeffersonian around nine and begged me to get her in here to visit you, even though visiting hours were over. I told the guards it was urgent, flashed my badge, and we're here," he replied, offering Zack a small smile. "You owe me, kid."

"I owe you what?" Zack asked, confused, but happy to see Alex's small figure in the hallway behind Booth.

"Never mind," he said. Lowering his voice, he added, "Look, she's a good kid, Zack. Hold on to her. And don't hurt her." Turning to face Alex, he clapped his hands and said, "He's all yours, Alex. I'll just be waiting out by the front."

"Thanks, Agent Booth," she said, offering him a nervous grin. She stepped quickly into Zack's room and said, "Zack, I'm sorry I left so suddenly earlier."

"No, it's alright," he told her softly, closing the door behind her and sitting down on his bed, inviting her to follow suit. She did so, maintaining about an inch of space between them all the while. "I'm sorry for whatever I said or did to upset you."

"I told you earlier, Zack, it wasn't anything you said or did," she told him, shaking her head. "It's just… me."

His eyebrows knitted together in confusion. "I'm afraid I don't understand."

"I flipped out when you asked me whether or not I was a virgin," she explained.

"Flipped out?" he asked. "I don't know what that means."

"It means I… freaked out. I was agitated," she explained, and he nodded his head in understanding.

"Is there a particular reason behind your… flipping out?" he said, and the words sounded so strange coming from his mouth that she almost laughed.

Almost.

"Yeah," she said, nodding her head. "When I was seventeen… I was raped by this guy in my English class. It was… pretty traumatic, I have to admit. After that, I had a hard time trusting guys that I didn't trust previously. Kevin, Seth, and Andy had been my best friends for a couple years then, and I already trusted them, but… I couldn't really bring myself to trust any other males. Until I met you. I trusted you. Because you seemed innocent."

"I was the apprentice to a cannibalistic serial killer," Zack pointed out. "But that's not the point at the moment. Do I have permission to… touch you?"

Offering him a watery smile, she nodded and said, "Yes, Zack. I trust you. It's just… I didn't expect your question, and it brought up a lot of dormant feelings. I didn't know how to explain it to you, so I just left. I'm sorry. I didn't stop to think of how confused you would be. So I begged Booth to get me in after hours."

"It's okay," he told her, awkwardly patting her on the back. "I appreciate all the effort you put into getting yourself here to explain to me, even though I would have been just fine waiting until tomorrow."

"No," she told him, shaking her head. "Your psychiatric evaluation is tomorrow. I don't want you to worry about anything else."

Slowly, gently so as not to alarm her, he wrapped his arms around her and she buried her face in his chest. He stiffened at first, but then he relaxed into her and buried his nose in her hair. "Why does everything happen to you?" he asked. "Your father commits suicide, you are driven to self-mutilation and an attempt at suicide, and you were raped. No one should have to bear that amount of pain."

"It's okay, Zack," she told him, her voice muffled because her face was still buried in his chest. "I have you."

"Does that really have an ameliorating effect on your plights?" he asked doubtfully, stroking her hair and sounding doubtful.

"Yes," she assured him, raising her head to meet his eyes. "I love you, Zack."

He almost said it back.

Almost.