She spent all Tuesday coming up with another "more science-y" design that didn't clash with the font and image layout she already had, and since she had stayed the night she was jittery with stress nerves.

She'd tried to restrain herself from yelling at Bob when he decided to have fish for lunch; and had ground out to Megan that she was running late on a deadline, so yes, she was indeed wearing the same shirt as yesterday; and for the love of God no it wasn't the walk of shame.

Her lunch had consisted of three cups of coffee that were so strong on the creamer that they were mostly just creamer; no one in the office had said anything about it though.

In fact, no one said much of anything to her after Cherryl came over after her own lunch break and said that the new design was coming along nicely, but she wasn't so sure about all the organic swirls; and how were the image edits coming along?

Shilloh wanted to know where her mentor had been during the entire week she had been making the brochure in the first place, but it was only her second week on the job and she wasn't allowed to be a bitch yet.

The last one to leave that day was Marissa, one of the two women that had left to 'go to the bathroom' the day Shilloh had gone out to dinner with her coworkers; Marissa was a sweetheart and had been one of the few people the entire day to not suffer through Shilloh's constant glare.

"What's your favorite creamer?" She asked, looking at Shilloh's computer screen as she switched colors, trying to decide between a light blue and a light brown.

"Coconut, but if you're planning on being the nicest person in the world and bringing it in tomorrow, good luck- it's practically impossible to find. So barring that, go ahead and bring in anything with chocolate in the name," she was still doggedly switching between colors, but she spared a brief moment to smile up at Marissa.

"Ok. And I'd go with the blue, with brown as a highlight," she said, patting Shilloh on the head before slipping on her coat and leaving the building, closing the door behind her.

Shilloh sighed, twirling in her seat- the building was scary and very, very lonely at night.

OOO

Wednesday was much, much worse than Tuesday. She was tired and stressed and very much grouchy as well as extremely hungry.

Her legs wanted to stretch so badly that they practically screamed, and her eyes felt scratchy from looking at the screen for so long. Plus, she felt entirely too gross- she was still in the same outfit as Monday.

Bob made some sort of curry for lunch, and she was beginning to realize why the office always smelled funny.

Megan made another allusion to the walk of shame, and this time Shilloh just flipped her off, which seemed to make Stephanie happy for a while. Until she mentioned that Shilloh's shirt had a coffee stain on the collar, and then she too was flipped off.

During lunch Shilloh was momentarily appeased when she discovered the largest container of coconut creamer she had ever seen; she'd have to make cookies for Marissa as a thank you.

She was officially done with the brochure at four o'clock, sending two different packaged files off to Print, and a PDF over to Cherryl. She didn't stick around to see what her mentor had to say about the finished product, though; she had better things to do- like take a shower.

She was on her way down the hall and headed out of the building when she was ambushed from behind.

"Where have you been? Skipping our lunches together without telling anyone is rude; two days in a row? We were almost starting to get worried," Angela's voice seemed to be going a million miles an hour to Shilloh, whose brain didn't want to function properly at the moment.

She opened her mouth to try and say something, but nothing came out. Not that Angela noticed, she was still tugging Shilloh along towards the lab.

"Hodgins will be glad to see you; he's already run out of cookies and wants to ask you for more. He was stealing Zach's, but boy genius has started hiding them. Don't let Hodgins ask you in a round-about way, I want to actually hear the words 'please' and 'thank you' escape his lips for once," Angela was still rushing on, pulling Shilloh through the doors into the lab, not noticing that the girl behind her wasn't talking.

"Hey guys! Found her!" She called out, swiping her card and looking around.

"You did? Where was she?" Hodgins asked, looking over from his station; "Jesus, are you ok?" Shilloh looked very much not ok in Hodgins' opinion, but he had been on the receiving end of a couple of slaps after saying a woman didn't look so good before; so he settled with making it a question.

"Is that the shirt you wore on Monday?" Angela asked, finally paying attention to Shilloh.

"Ugh…. Yeah," she nodded, trying to keep her head from lolling onto her shoulder and her spine from crumpling in on itself.

"Come here, honey, let's go lay you down," Angela said, steering her towards the couches at their lunch spot. "Why do you…" she trailed off, not quite knowing how to say, 'why do you look like crap,' without making it sound so harsh. "Are you going to be ok?" She settled on.

"Yeah. Yeah, I've just been working since Monday on a last-minute project; God, I feel so disgusting, Angela, I need to change and take a shower," Shilloh sighed into the couch as she settled herself in.

"You haven't slept since Monday?"

Shilloh shook her head, and Angela frowned.

"And what was the last thing you ate?"

"I had… Batman and coconut coffee," Shilloh's eyes closed, the couch felt really good, "I should take the bus back to my apartment," she nodded to herself, eyes still closed, but she didn't move.

"Yeah, you just stay there for a while; I'll get you some food in a bit, ok?" Angela said, but there was no response to her statement other than light breathing.

"So what's the prognosis Dr. Quinn?" Hodgins asked before Angela had even made it all the way down the stairs. Zach didn't think it would be appropriate to point out that Angela was neither a doctor, nor named Quinn.

"She's been here since Monday, and apparently the last thing she ate was lunch with us," she frowned up at the walkway where she had left Shilloh, then turned back to the boys, "she fell asleep before I could ask her exactly why she stayed here."

"That is unhealthy," Zach stated before thinking his comment through completely; if he had he would have expected the retort from Hodgins.

"No duh; it's no wonder you're a genius," Hodgins' voice hadn't taken on the harsh tone that many of his peers' had throughout his younger years, so Zach felt no ill will towards his friend.

Angela looked at the two in an exasperated fashion, and Zach couldn't quite figure out why. "If you two are done, I'd like to get her fed and then take her home. I don't want her riding the bus- she'll probably fall asleep and miss her stop."

"Right, I forgot she takes the bus," Hodgins said by way of agreement.

"I believe I have a lunch for her," Zach volunteered; he had gotten so used to the schedule of Shilloh announcing the start of lunch, that when she hadn't shown up on Tuesday he had worked straight through. He had decided to leave it in the staff kitchen for the unlikely event that he would forget to pack a lunch in the future.

"Oh good- next break you have in your work, could you go bring it up to her? I want to try and finish my work early so I can bring her home before it gets too dark out," Angela said, glancing down at her watch, trying to calculate how long it would take her to finish everything.

Zach looked at his computer screen as Angela paced off towards her office. He glanced at the clock, then over at the autopsy table that still housed Mary's remains, and back over at his computer screen.

"Go; I'll get your paperwork done," Hodgins sighed in what Zach was guessing to be mock-suffering, "just remember my kindness the next time I want a favor done," he said, and Zach nodded, even though he was pretty sure Hodgins was joking.

OOO

He held the mac and cheese between both hands, not quite knowing what to do now that he was standing in front of her.

She had one arm draped over the back of the couch, he could see her hand moving slightly, as if the fingers hidden on the other side where sliding across the fabric. Her other hand was lying atop her chest, the fingers tightly woven in the top of her shirt, and he was certain it was a defensive display.

As he stood there uncertainly, the leg that dangled off the couch lost its shoe with an audible plop; and he finally noticed her face as it changed slightly during the course of her dream.

He knew most people looked less guarded and more –innocent, as his mother had once described it- during sleep, but she somehow seemed different. He couldn't place it.

And then he took a step too close to her, and she jumped up, shouting, "don't change the type!" her hand that had been clutching her shirt moving up to the side of her face in a recognizable parody of horror.

"Augh! My eyes hurt, why do my eyes hurt?" She asked, her hands fisted into balls and crushing themselves to her eyes; she sat up on the couch, hunching her shoulders over to rest her elbows on her knees.

He wasn't certain if that was one of those rhetorical questions or not, and was about to ask, when she answered her own question.

"Oh, contacts. I need to start carrying my glasses with me," she rubbed her eyes with her fists one last time, and then looked up at him.

He knew now what was different about her when she slept- there were fewer lines about her eyes. She didn't have worry lines, like Agent Booth, or laughter lines like Angela. He couldn't place them, but he knew something was different. He didn't like it.

"I brought you some food," he said, holding the blue container out for her. She smiled at him and reached for it from her position on the couch; he took a step closer when it became obvious that her arms were too short.

"Thanks. Do you keep these in the staff kitchen or something?" She asked, taking the plastic fork he offered her as well. He thought the question was an invitation to stay for a conversation, and so decided to sit on the couch with her.

"Not normally, no. When you didn't show up for lunch on Tuesday I lost track of time; I decided to leave it here in case I forgot lunch one day," he replied, leaning down to pick up the shoe she had dropped while asleep.

"Oh," she replied, watching as he moved her errant shoe towards her. When she let the words process she felt horrible, "Oh, Zachs, I'm really sorry. Tell you what, how about we exchange numbers, that way next time I can't make it to lunch I can call?" She phrased it as a question, which made it sound awkward, but she didn't want to come off as demanding his number in case he was uncomfortable with giving it out.

The thought that she had inadvertently made him miss lunch made her feel terrible, but perversely it also made her feel accepted by him. She was apart of his schedule, now- they were friends.

"Why do you pluralize my name?" He asked, surprising himself. She had asked for his number; no one had ever asked for his number outside of work and family. Hodgins was the only friend who had his number, but he didn't think that counted, since they also worked together.

She seemed startled for a second before smiling at him and saying in a quiet voice, "because I keep trying to say Zachster. I stop myself, obviously- for two reasons. One, because we've barely known each other for two weeks and I don't know if a nickname is really all that appropriate yet. And two, Zachster is a really lame nickname."

She continued to look at him as he sat on his end of the couch, squished against the armrest with his legs splayed out diagonally in front of him- as if he was trying to ward off his awkwardness by putting physical distance between himself and her. She tried not to make it any more awkward for him by commenting on how cute he looked- which was hard, since she was running on about half an hour of sleep.

He seemed to be thinking things over for an inordinately long time, and she was about to turn her interests solely to her food, when he finally said something.

"If you feel comfortable enough to give me a nickname I would not refuse it, even if you consider it lame," he paused, and the oddness of it reminded her of how her CDs sometimes skipped and tried to right themselves, but wound up getting stuck until she fast forwarded. He paused for a while, and she was contemplating asking him something to get him to start talking again.

Luckily he spared her tired brain and resumed his train of thought, "if we exchange phone numbers, does that make us friends?" He wasn't supposed to ask people if they were friends, Angela had said it was some sort of social faux pas, but he was curious about the answer and Angela wasn't here to tell him he was doing something wrong, so he figured he'd get away with it so long as Shilloh didn't mention anything.

"Only if you want to be friends," she replied, stirring her food around, wondering how someone so straight-forward as Zach could be so confusing. One moment she was thinking they were friends because she was a part of his schedule, the next he was basically telling her they weren't friends yet. She tried not to squirm in her seat waiting for his answer; it made her feel like a little girl passing notes in class or something.

"Yes."

Well, that was simple, then. She couldn't help the large smile that spread across her face at his words. After two weeks of thinking he didn't care one way or the other, she could finally stop feeling awkward around him and place him into a category in her life.

They sat in silence for a while as Shilloh finished the food, then they both stood up when she made to throw away the garbage.

Slipping her shoe back on, she looked over at the couch, and rubbed at her eyes again, then looked back over at Zach who was already making his way down the stairs. She frowned- she was really tired, but sleeping right now wasn't such a good idea, her contacts would just wind up hurting her eyes even more. She'd just head home, instead. Hopefully she wouldn't fall asleep on the bus.

So she skipped down the steps after her friend, calling after him, "we forgot to exchange numbers." When Zach just looked at her, she thought he had forgotten what she was talking about and was about to remind him.

"You should be sleeping until Angela can take you home," he said.

Her face must have been amusing, because Hodgins was laughing at her, but she was too tired to come up with a retort to make him stop, so she settled on asking what Zach was talking about.

"Angela doesn't want you to take the bus; she said once she's done with work she'll give you a ride back to your apartment," he clarified, and that didn't help much, really, because she knew her face was still doing something amusing judging by the reaction that Hodgins was still having.

"I can take the bus, though. I'm not incapable, or anything," she protested, sounding very much like a two-year-old. It was something she was coming to realize she did a lot in the company of these people- making herself seem like a small child.

"Don't worry about it, she just wants to make sure you get home safe is all," Hodgins said, interrupting before Zach could say anything about how she hadn't been taking care of herself thus far.

"Well fine, but I can't sleep. My eyes are killing me, and sleep'll just make it worse," she complained, whining just for the hell of it. Noticing Hodgins' look, she expanded by saying, "contacts," before moving around the autopsy table while fishing around in her messenger bag.

Reaching Zach's side she silently handed him her cell phone, and when he looked down at it, she wiggled her hand, then said, "program your cell number into it," then continued to look at him until he got the message and handed his cell over to her as well.

"How come I don't get your number?" Hodgins asked.

"Because you called me pipsqueak. I told you there would be retribution," she said idly as she tried to find the contacts section of Zach's phone. "But tell you what, because I'm so nice, I'll look past it just this once and give you my number anyway." She held out her free hand for Hodgins to give her his phone as she finished programming her number into Zach's.

The exchange of numbers lasted all of three minutes, and she was bored immediately thereafter. And she was guessing she was to be stuck in the lab for at least an hour. Normally she wouldn't complain, she loved science (even though she was absolutely horrible at it), but she just wanted to go home and take a shower. Then sleep.

Instead she settled with trying to entertain herself by looking over Hodgins' shoulder for a while. Until he swatted her away and said she was agitating his environment; she made some comment under her breath that neither of them seemed to understand (he because he couldn't hear it, and her because she lost track of what she was saying half-way through), before moving over to Zach's station.

Zach was more patient, at least, she liked to think he was; she knew it probably had more to do with the fact that he didn't even notice her standing nearby. After fifteen minutes of watching both her friends shuffle things around minutely, she decided to spend her time sitting in a corner instead.

And so she spent the next hour leaning against the railing and doodling in her sketch book- lots of things that involved curly-haired men playing with giant beetles, and tall floppy-haired scientists fiddling with bones.

She was adding a sad face to one of the beetle sketches when Angela appeared on the platform, announcing that it was finally time to leave; and with a hasty goodbye she practically sprinted out the exit, only stopping once she realized that she didn't know where Angela's car was.

She had expected the car ride to be filled with mildly awkward silence, but Angela was good at talking, and so in between the instructions on how to get to her apartment, Shilloh found herself relaxing enough to talk about her family a little; and about her plans after college, too.

Part of it had to do with Angela's amazing social prowess, but part of it also had to do with the fact that Shilloh always got really talkative when she was tired- she usually tried to just keep her mouth shut when she didn't get enough sleep, since she wound up saying something she didn't want to most times.

But this was how you made friends- you shared parts of your life, and Angela wasn't prying for anything personal, so Shilloh felt comfortable enough to tell her that college wasn't something she really wanted to do in the first place. She wanted to travel, actually, and as soon as she graduated, that's what she was doing.

And she felt comfortable enough to say that she had a sister- that wasn't anything too personal, was it? She thought for a minute and decided that it most definitely wasn't.

She felt comfortable enough to say that so far, she liked DC more than any of the other cities she had visited; and she had really liked Philadelphia, too, so that was a huge complement.

"Don't tell Hodgins though- he's still mad that I insulted the way people here drive, and I think it's kind of funny. I don't want him thinking I've gone soft on the city or anything," she confided to Angela, who dutifully laughed and agreed that it was a girls' secret.

"What other cities have you visited?" Angela asked, sounding genuinely interested, which was refreshing; usually when people asked her questions, Shilloh felt like they were just trying to find a way to start talking about themselves again.

"Well Philadelphia, that was lots of fun- saw the Liberty Bell. I had to drag my parents to see it, too. There was a guy who gave us an entire thing of bagels, they went stale before we left at the end of the week there were so many. And I've been all over Oregon and Washington; parts of Idaho and Montana. Umm.. My aunt lived in L.A. before moving to Seattle, so I've been there quite a few times. I didn't much like it- I felt like I was always in the way. Then there's Salt Lake, my mom and I have been there so many times, that the lady at this German bakery we visit thinks we actually live there," she trailed off, trying to think of anything else she'd missed, "and then a couple places as a kid, but I don't think those count since I don't remember them."

"You had to drag you parents to see the Liberty Bell? Isn't that usually something people go see when they visit Philly?" Angela asked, completely puzzled.

"We were there for the surgery on my cancer, so they weren't up to much of anything," Shilloh replied, trying to sound casual about it and failing.

"Is that what that scar's for, then?" Angela asked, not having known about this part of Shilloh; when Shilloh nodded, Angela frowned slightly and decided to change the subject. "Where do you want to travel once you've graduated?"

"Everywhere. Italy first, though," Shilloh said, and the rest of the trip was spent with Angela giving her travel advice and talking about the best traveling methods.

Angela was surprised by the apartment; not that she was surprised that it was run down, that part she had been expecting- what she hadn't been expecting was the complete lack of anything in the apartment.

There was no computer, no television, no rug on the floor, even. When Shilloh kicked her shoes into a pile by the wall and dropped her bag by the couch that had a sheet on it, Angela couldn't believe exactly what she was seeing. How did someone entertain themselves when there was literally nothing to do?

"Thank you so much for the ride, Angela," Shilloh said, and she took that as her queue to leave.

"It's no problem, I'll see you at lunch tomorrow, ok?" And with that, she closed the door behind her and left for her own home.

OOO

"You guys, she has no TV," Angela greeted the boys the next day, and they both looked at her in askance, "Shilloh. At her apartment, she has no TV, or computer. Or anything. I was looking at her facebook-" she began, before Hodgins cut her off.

"Stalking her Ange?"

"I was looking at her facebook and she had Xbox live before coming here- her sister was actually making fun of her for having to leave behind all of her games; and she was complaining on it about not being able to pack her art easel. What does this girl do for entertainment?" She continued on, ignoring Hodgins.

"Paints her nails," Zach said, getting bewildered looks from both Hodgins and Angela. "She has had different nail polish for the past several days," he clarified.

"See, it's moments like these that let me know he doesn't completely tune out the world," Hodgins said, and they all broke apart to begin working.