Chapter 5: Isolation

"Nature abhors a vacuum."

"I notice you always come and go alone."

"I am friends with the people I work with," Zack said, unconcerned.

"You care about them?"

He nodded. "Yes. And they were quite happy to see me when I returned from Iraq. Dr. Brennan assured me that that was why they were staring at me."

"But they don't come out to eat with you, anything like that?"

"Occasionally. We celebrate birthdays, when I got my doctorate. Events like that. Usually I spend time with them at work, or on my way to and from there."

"Do they spend time with each other outside of work?"

Zack nodded. "Certainly. Hodgins and Angela are dating. Really, they're engaged, so they spend as much time together as possible. They were supposed to be married, but it didn't work because bigamy is illegal in this country. Dr. Brennan spends a great deal of time with Agent Booth. I am not sure if that is outside of work or not, because they work outside of work. They used to take me with them, but now that I am no longer Dr. Brennan's assistant, I don't know what happens when they are not in the lab. I have no idea what Dr. Saroyan does when she is not at work. I don't think she would tell me if I asked her. She does not spend her time with me, though, I know that."

"So, they all have people they spend time with. Other friends they like better than you?"

"Hodgins is my best friend. He asked me to be best man at his wedding. He does not want me to leave the apartment over his garage."

"And yet he spends all his free time with Angela?"

"Yes. He is crazy about her, and she is crazy about him. Neither of them is actually crazy; they just talk like that."

"They don't invite you along with them?"

"No. That would be…extremely uncomfortable. Even at work, they are very…personal."

"So really, Angela is his best friend."

Zack's face scrunched up in confusion. "Can girlfriends and best friends be the same person?"

Nothos nodded. "People often say they married their best friend."

"Then I suppose Angela is Hodgins' best friend. I am not sure if he is Angela's best friend, though. Her best friend is Dr. Brennan, and I don't think she would allow a relationship with a man to alter that. She holds friendship with her female friends sacrosanct."

"Do you even know what that means?" the other man asked in amusement.

"It means it cannot be altered," Zack answered with a straight face.

"And your friendships, are they sacrosanct?"

"Why would I want to alter them?" Zack asked.

"Well, people move on, find new interests…"

Zack shook his head. "No, I care about my friends. I would not stop being friends with them."

"And they would not stop being friends with you either?"

Zack said No immediately, but it was rather quiet, and he hunched his shoulders. He had suddenly realized why he missed Hodgins even though they still saw each other at work all the time. Hodgins was best friends with Angela, not him. How had he not known that? How had he not noticed that his best friend had…moved on, developed new interests? Hodgins still treated him the same, mostly. He still gave him rides back and forth to work, most of the time, unless he was spending the night at Angela's. He talked with him in the lab. But he didn't eat lunch with him anymore. All of his free time was given to…Angela.

He took a deep breath to reassure himself. "Dr. Saroyan and Dr. Brennan value me. They are always working to teach me new things, and they value my input to the team. They have both expressed to me my unique worth. They will not…move on."

"So who did your work while you were away?"

"I am not...irreplacable. They hired an African American man to do my job. Temporarily."

"Dr. Brennan has always taught you, always taken you along with her to see how she works?"

"Yes. Well, not all the time. Not anymore. I only go along if she needs another forensic anthropologist, so usually not on the FBI cases anymore. She assesses the body in the field, and then sends the remains back to the Jeffersonian where I can analyze it."

"Who goes along with her on the FBI cases?"

"No one. She can take care of those herself. Just Agent Booth is with her. For…moral support. He can't do anything with the body, so I'm not really sure what else he is there for. Interpretation, maybe? He is good at giving orders. He drags her away to cases all the time."

"So she would rather have moral support than a trained forensic anthropologist?"

"Yes." Again, the face squinched up after he said that. He had not considered this before. Hodgins spent his time with Angela, not him. Dr. Brennan spent her time with Agent Booth…not him. "But like I said, Dr. Saroyan always works with me in the lab."

"Yes. She just never spends time with you outside of the lab."

"Well, she does come along when we..."

"I meant, just you."

"No, she doesn't."

It was very strange to suddenly realize that he had no friends. What was even more strange was that he hadn't noticed it before. He supposed it was because he still cared for them in the same way he always had. It was simply their attitudes towards him that had changed. He would have to work on that. His mother always told him that if you want to make friends, you have to be a friend. He tried to explain to her at the time that he didn't really know what that meant, and could she please give more specific, step by step instructions? But surely now he would do better? He had gleaned specific details over the years that he could now implement. Maybe if he shared a little bit of his personal life at work, he'd be able to reconnect. Maybe it was all his fault, for failure to assimilate, even at the Jeffersonian, the one place he'd thought of as his home. Maybe he had been too complacent, to think he could leave for three months, and come home to find everything was just as he'd left it. Of course they moved on in his absense. That was only natural.

Aloud, he said, "Well, at least you eat meals with me outside of work."

Nothos smiled at him, and patted his shoulder reassuringly.

Author's Note: Sorry for the lack of setting in this one. I felt it needed to be a disembodied conversation. The tangible world will return next chapter (with a vengeance!) Zack discussed the possibility of moving out of Hodgins garage into a new apartment in "The Secret in the Soil."