To Raise Perhaps, Many Flowers (7/9)
Title: To Raise, Perhaps, Many Flowers
Part: 7
Fandom: Bones
P/C: Zack/Angela
Rating: Hard R (language, graphic scenes, adult references throughout)
Summary: The cold black and white of the line up. Six men standing side by side holding their numbers
Spoilers: None. Season 1 AU.
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6
Hodgins picked her up from the police station
He took her to a bar. Her vodka up sat acidly in her stomach, almost nausea-inducing in combination with the day.
***
She had shown up to the Echo, not knowing what she was going to do once she got there. She had gotten to the crime scene line when two police officers one male and short, one female and slender approached her. “Angela Montenegro?”
She’d answered in the affirmative. “You need to come with us ma’am.”
“Why, where are you taking me?”
The slender female cop looked at the short male one. “We’re taking you to the station for questioning.” “Questioning about what?” Angela knew perfectly well what for. She was playing for time, wanting to avoid such a brutal event for as long as possible. She’d acknowledged the event, acknowledged her feelings…but to actually have to answer questions was something else entirely. “Do I have to?” The female cop nodded sadly. She seemed genuinely sympathetic.
“I’m sorry, but we need to question you further. Agent Booth gave us most of his records of your interviews but we need more. I’m sorry Ms. Montenegro.”
Angela’s shoulders slumped a little. She didn’t want to go, but it seemed like she didn’t have a choice.
***
“So…. how are things with you and Zack?” Hodgins asked her. She gave him a look. “That’s none of your business Jack.” She took another sip of her drink, wincing a little at the way it burned her mouth. She hadn’t had any alcohol in months and she was worried that even this little bit might get her drunk.
Brennan had drunkenly informed her on one of their abortive club outings that physical tolerance for alcohol only really lasted four days.
She took another sip.
***
“Can you tell me which man assaulted you?”
The cold black and white of the line up. Six men standing side by side holding their numbers. And the winner is…
“Number 4. It’s number 4.”
There had been no sign of Zack or Booth. The interview was short and nowhere near as awful as Angela had imagined. She told them about the gaps in her memory, told them which hospital carried the records of her injuries and the sequence of events in the evening.
She couldn’t believe that it was over so fast. Time usually seemed extremely honeyed when she thought back to that day: seconds turned to minutes, turned to hours, turned to days. Then she would shake out of it and barely a few seconds would have passed.
***
“Hey, I’m just asking.” Hodgins looked at her, hurt. “Zack is my friend you know, I do care about him.” Angela drinks the rest of the vodka, swiftly. She doesn’t know what to say. Zack is…well, Zack is Zack and she’s Angela and in what world was this supposed to happen?
“Look, he hasn’t told me or anything,” Hodgins paused and looked down. “ But I’m pretty sure that he’s in-”
“Stop.” Angela set her cup down. “I can’t talk about this. Not now. Not after-” “Not after what? Not after he’s slept on your couch every night just so you wouldn’t feel alone? Not after he basically kept your secret-”
She turned angrily to him. “Until he didn’t. He told Booth. He promised me he’d never tell anyone!” People in the bar were starting to look at them now. Angela realized that she was speaking very loudly. She sighed and put her drink down.
“Look, Jack, I just had an extremely difficult day. Extremely. Difficult. So what I’d like right now is to go back to the Echo, pick up my car and go home.” She got up to go to the car, leaving a five on the bar. Hodgins followed her quickly. “Angela, I’m really sorry. I just….I worry about the guy. Zack’s really…well, he’s Zack. I wouldn’t want anything bad to happen to him. And since you and him have gotten close it seems like he’s this whole new person, like he’s less like an alien.”
“Zack is not an alien.” Angela spat back. She was still completely furious with Jack for bringing this up at all. She needed time and space, things that, for some reason, no one wanted to give her.
***
Angela gratefully collapsed against the closed door of her apartment. She locked it and turned around. She did miss Zack. Usually around now, she’d be unable to get to sleep (she’d noted with some alarm after Hodgins dropped her off that it was closing in on one AM in her part of the world) and Zack would be sitting with her, feigning interest in whatever film she’d put on to stave off boredom, panic or ‘existential grimness’ as she liked to call it, jokingly.
But he had enjoyed them when she really thought about it. He’d thought she had amazing taste in films. He had even said so one day, while he was cooking dinner when she couldn’t even get up off the couch. And that was how she saw them now: sitting on the couch in the evening, watching a film together, talking about why film was important, something Zack struggled to understand and that she was ridiculously passionate about. She remembered the first time they’d kissed and Zack sleeping on the sofa and walking her to her car after work. And bringing her lunch. And being as kind as he could, all the time, if possible.
Angela realized she was going to cry. There were tears standing in her eyes. She sat down on the couch, not believing how oblivious she had been all this time. Zack was in love with her. She’d ignored it this entire time. She hadn’t wanted to know. Knowing was too hard and lately that had been something Angela hadn’t been doing.
She put her hands over her face, covering her eyes. No! I am not going to sit here and get weepy about this! She stood up and looked at the clock. 1:15AM.
Well, it’s too late to do anything right now. So the best thing to do now is to sleep and be ready tomorrow Angela thought. She went into her bedroom, and lay down, falling into exhausted sleep almost immediately.
***
Zack lay in bed, thinking back.
He had always imagined what he might do if he met the man who hurt Angela. He’d imagined being heroic, throwing things, beating him up. Not that Zack had ever been in a fight before. Though from a logical standpoint, fighting didn’t seem so difficult.
It was hard for him to be this angry. He could literally list off on one hand the times he had been furious before these last few months. Now it seemed like every day there was a fresh wave of anger, this almost physical sensation of the need for revenge, for some kind of compensation for the hell that had sprung up around Angela, a hell he’d willingly gone into.
It was totally maddening to have been completely helpless, to have only been a “forensic consultant”, to have Booth make the arrest, while that guy had cracked wise about hurting Angela.
Booth had told him not to do anything, no matter how upset he got: this was not a federal case, not yet, and anything Zack did would be left to the local police to deal with. So Zack had bitten his tongue and clenched his fists in his pockets and gone home, because really there had been nothing else for him to do.
When he went home, he got into bed and hated himself a little more.
***
The next day, Angela woke up early. Her sleep was less disturbed then usual, but the toll of the previous day had taken a lot out of her and left her exhausted. At 8 AM she snapped out of sleep. She didn’t waste any time lying in bed. She needed to talk to Zack. She got up and got into the shower.
She squirted some shampoo into her open palm and stepped under the warm water. As she soaped her hair, she realized how angry she still was. Zack had broken a promise he’d made to her, but at the same time, he had done it to help her. She thought back on everything she knew about Zack: the awkwardness, the social inabilities, his lack of self-confidence, the fact that Naomi from Paleontology was only the second woman he’d ever slept with; it didn’t make it excusable, but it made it a lot more understandable for her.
She was still angry, she wouldn’t deny it, and if she was really honest with herself, Angela realized she was still furious.
But the thing of it was, she didn’t want to be furious. Usually when someone made her angry, she was fine with it. She’d always viewed anger as a healthy reaction to an unhealthy situation. Now, she just felt like she was a frustrated little girl again, angry to no point and purpose. Zack knew that he had hurt her. Zack probably felt horrible for doing so, Zack would probably do anything to get her to forgive him, but still, it persisted, whispering in her ear about broken trust, a nagging gut-punch of disbelief that wouldn’t let go of her.
Angela began to cry, her tears hidden by the water streaming down her face.
***
She avoided him until after work. She didn’t want to cause another scene; especially after the meeting she and Goodman had had in his office this morning. He had, as delicately as possible, offered her an extended vacation with pay.
She had flatly refused, stating that she had been able to function for the last few months quite productively and didn’t feel that any kind of change in her routine would be helpful. “I just want to keep my life going,” she’d said and now, oh how she regretted it. Because now, Zack wouldn’t speak to her. She’d caught him staring from time to time throughout the day, but he didn’t approach her, didn’t look at her directly and seemed to be avoiding her even while she avoided him!
Angela did avoidance better then anyone. She knew how to make it seems as though she was avoiding no one, behaving naturally while avoiding someone like the Black Plague. She knew that she was almost in the clear as she looked at the clock. It was 6pm. Her work was done, her keys were in her pocket, Brennan was happily occupied with some poor sap who’d been jammed into the H-VAC system at a local high school, Dr. Goodman had gone home and she hadn’t seen Zack for the past hour, which meant he was in Limbo, sorting and studying.
She stepped out of her office, walking quickly, her head slightly bowed. She started towards the exit, ready to skirt the platform, open the doors and bound down the hall before anyone could catch her.
What happened was, as she turned the corner of the forensics platform, she practically crashed into Zack, which would have been catastrophic, considering the skull he was carrying on a steel tray. They stared at each other, not meeting each other’s eyes, both struggling to speak.
“I…uh, well…um…uh…”
Angela forced a smile. “Bye!”
She turned away from Zack, shocked at her reaction. She felt incredibly mean and incredibly stupid.
She turned to see if Zack was still standing there, only to catch sight of his back as he walked away.
Part: 7
Fandom: Bones
P/C: Zack/Angela
Rating: Hard R (language, graphic scenes, adult references throughout)
Summary: The cold black and white of the line up. Six men standing side by side holding their numbers
Spoilers: None. Season 1 AU.
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6
Hodgins picked her up from the police station
He took her to a bar. Her vodka up sat acidly in her stomach, almost nausea-inducing in combination with the day.
***
She had shown up to the Echo, not knowing what she was going to do once she got there. She had gotten to the crime scene line when two police officers one male and short, one female and slender approached her. “Angela Montenegro?”
She’d answered in the affirmative. “You need to come with us ma’am.”
“Why, where are you taking me?”
The slender female cop looked at the short male one. “We’re taking you to the station for questioning.” “Questioning about what?” Angela knew perfectly well what for. She was playing for time, wanting to avoid such a brutal event for as long as possible. She’d acknowledged the event, acknowledged her feelings…but to actually have to answer questions was something else entirely. “Do I have to?” The female cop nodded sadly. She seemed genuinely sympathetic.
“I’m sorry, but we need to question you further. Agent Booth gave us most of his records of your interviews but we need more. I’m sorry Ms. Montenegro.”
Angela’s shoulders slumped a little. She didn’t want to go, but it seemed like she didn’t have a choice.
***
“So…. how are things with you and Zack?” Hodgins asked her. She gave him a look. “That’s none of your business Jack.” She took another sip of her drink, wincing a little at the way it burned her mouth. She hadn’t had any alcohol in months and she was worried that even this little bit might get her drunk.
Brennan had drunkenly informed her on one of their abortive club outings that physical tolerance for alcohol only really lasted four days.
She took another sip.
***
“Can you tell me which man assaulted you?”
The cold black and white of the line up. Six men standing side by side holding their numbers. And the winner is…
“Number 4. It’s number 4.”
There had been no sign of Zack or Booth. The interview was short and nowhere near as awful as Angela had imagined. She told them about the gaps in her memory, told them which hospital carried the records of her injuries and the sequence of events in the evening.
She couldn’t believe that it was over so fast. Time usually seemed extremely honeyed when she thought back to that day: seconds turned to minutes, turned to hours, turned to days. Then she would shake out of it and barely a few seconds would have passed.
***
“Hey, I’m just asking.” Hodgins looked at her, hurt. “Zack is my friend you know, I do care about him.” Angela drinks the rest of the vodka, swiftly. She doesn’t know what to say. Zack is…well, Zack is Zack and she’s Angela and in what world was this supposed to happen?
“Look, he hasn’t told me or anything,” Hodgins paused and looked down. “ But I’m pretty sure that he’s in-”
“Stop.” Angela set her cup down. “I can’t talk about this. Not now. Not after-” “Not after what? Not after he’s slept on your couch every night just so you wouldn’t feel alone? Not after he basically kept your secret-”
She turned angrily to him. “Until he didn’t. He told Booth. He promised me he’d never tell anyone!” People in the bar were starting to look at them now. Angela realized that she was speaking very loudly. She sighed and put her drink down.
“Look, Jack, I just had an extremely difficult day. Extremely. Difficult. So what I’d like right now is to go back to the Echo, pick up my car and go home.” She got up to go to the car, leaving a five on the bar. Hodgins followed her quickly. “Angela, I’m really sorry. I just….I worry about the guy. Zack’s really…well, he’s Zack. I wouldn’t want anything bad to happen to him. And since you and him have gotten close it seems like he’s this whole new person, like he’s less like an alien.”
“Zack is not an alien.” Angela spat back. She was still completely furious with Jack for bringing this up at all. She needed time and space, things that, for some reason, no one wanted to give her.
***
Angela gratefully collapsed against the closed door of her apartment. She locked it and turned around. She did miss Zack. Usually around now, she’d be unable to get to sleep (she’d noted with some alarm after Hodgins dropped her off that it was closing in on one AM in her part of the world) and Zack would be sitting with her, feigning interest in whatever film she’d put on to stave off boredom, panic or ‘existential grimness’ as she liked to call it, jokingly.
But he had enjoyed them when she really thought about it. He’d thought she had amazing taste in films. He had even said so one day, while he was cooking dinner when she couldn’t even get up off the couch. And that was how she saw them now: sitting on the couch in the evening, watching a film together, talking about why film was important, something Zack struggled to understand and that she was ridiculously passionate about. She remembered the first time they’d kissed and Zack sleeping on the sofa and walking her to her car after work. And bringing her lunch. And being as kind as he could, all the time, if possible.
Angela realized she was going to cry. There were tears standing in her eyes. She sat down on the couch, not believing how oblivious she had been all this time. Zack was in love with her. She’d ignored it this entire time. She hadn’t wanted to know. Knowing was too hard and lately that had been something Angela hadn’t been doing.
She put her hands over her face, covering her eyes. No! I am not going to sit here and get weepy about this! She stood up and looked at the clock. 1:15AM.
Well, it’s too late to do anything right now. So the best thing to do now is to sleep and be ready tomorrow Angela thought. She went into her bedroom, and lay down, falling into exhausted sleep almost immediately.
***
Zack lay in bed, thinking back.
He had always imagined what he might do if he met the man who hurt Angela. He’d imagined being heroic, throwing things, beating him up. Not that Zack had ever been in a fight before. Though from a logical standpoint, fighting didn’t seem so difficult.
It was hard for him to be this angry. He could literally list off on one hand the times he had been furious before these last few months. Now it seemed like every day there was a fresh wave of anger, this almost physical sensation of the need for revenge, for some kind of compensation for the hell that had sprung up around Angela, a hell he’d willingly gone into.
It was totally maddening to have been completely helpless, to have only been a “forensic consultant”, to have Booth make the arrest, while that guy had cracked wise about hurting Angela.
Booth had told him not to do anything, no matter how upset he got: this was not a federal case, not yet, and anything Zack did would be left to the local police to deal with. So Zack had bitten his tongue and clenched his fists in his pockets and gone home, because really there had been nothing else for him to do.
When he went home, he got into bed and hated himself a little more.
***
The next day, Angela woke up early. Her sleep was less disturbed then usual, but the toll of the previous day had taken a lot out of her and left her exhausted. At 8 AM she snapped out of sleep. She didn’t waste any time lying in bed. She needed to talk to Zack. She got up and got into the shower.
She squirted some shampoo into her open palm and stepped under the warm water. As she soaped her hair, she realized how angry she still was. Zack had broken a promise he’d made to her, but at the same time, he had done it to help her. She thought back on everything she knew about Zack: the awkwardness, the social inabilities, his lack of self-confidence, the fact that Naomi from Paleontology was only the second woman he’d ever slept with; it didn’t make it excusable, but it made it a lot more understandable for her.
She was still angry, she wouldn’t deny it, and if she was really honest with herself, Angela realized she was still furious.
But the thing of it was, she didn’t want to be furious. Usually when someone made her angry, she was fine with it. She’d always viewed anger as a healthy reaction to an unhealthy situation. Now, she just felt like she was a frustrated little girl again, angry to no point and purpose. Zack knew that he had hurt her. Zack probably felt horrible for doing so, Zack would probably do anything to get her to forgive him, but still, it persisted, whispering in her ear about broken trust, a nagging gut-punch of disbelief that wouldn’t let go of her.
Angela began to cry, her tears hidden by the water streaming down her face.
***
She avoided him until after work. She didn’t want to cause another scene; especially after the meeting she and Goodman had had in his office this morning. He had, as delicately as possible, offered her an extended vacation with pay.
She had flatly refused, stating that she had been able to function for the last few months quite productively and didn’t feel that any kind of change in her routine would be helpful. “I just want to keep my life going,” she’d said and now, oh how she regretted it. Because now, Zack wouldn’t speak to her. She’d caught him staring from time to time throughout the day, but he didn’t approach her, didn’t look at her directly and seemed to be avoiding her even while she avoided him!
Angela did avoidance better then anyone. She knew how to make it seems as though she was avoiding no one, behaving naturally while avoiding someone like the Black Plague. She knew that she was almost in the clear as she looked at the clock. It was 6pm. Her work was done, her keys were in her pocket, Brennan was happily occupied with some poor sap who’d been jammed into the H-VAC system at a local high school, Dr. Goodman had gone home and she hadn’t seen Zack for the past hour, which meant he was in Limbo, sorting and studying.
She stepped out of her office, walking quickly, her head slightly bowed. She started towards the exit, ready to skirt the platform, open the doors and bound down the hall before anyone could catch her.
What happened was, as she turned the corner of the forensics platform, she practically crashed into Zack, which would have been catastrophic, considering the skull he was carrying on a steel tray. They stared at each other, not meeting each other’s eyes, both struggling to speak.
“I…uh, well…um…uh…”
Angela forced a smile. “Bye!”
She turned away from Zack, shocked at her reaction. She felt incredibly mean and incredibly stupid.
She turned to see if Zack was still standing there, only to catch sight of his back as he walked away.