A/N: I don't own anything. I really should be focusing on my other stories, like "The Sister in the Lab," but this popped into my head and wouldn't leave me alone. Don't worry, I'll keep updating TSTL. Anyways, please review. Takes place after "The Bone That Blew."

Chapter 1

Zack Addy sat off at a secluded table, studying the most current case file that Hodgins had brought him last time he had visited. He was contemplating the fascinating case, trying to calculate about how far the winds of the storm would have carried the bones. "Hey, punkass," said a voice. Zack quickly glanced up to see a large man standing in front of him.

Fight or flight?

Flight.

Most definitely.

Zack usually tried to avoid the other people in the insane asylum, because he knew that most of them were genuinely insane. Many of them had murdered people for nothing more than mere emotions. There wasn't even a hint of logic behind it. He packed up the file and went to return to his room, but the large man stood in his way. "Excuse me," he muttered, trying to be polite.

"You stole my socks," the man accused.

Zack had no idea what he was talking about. Deciding quickly that this man was one of those emotional killers, he tried to reason with him. "I don't know what you're talking about, sir. I didn't steal your socks. I've owned these for as long as I can remember."

Growling, the large man seized Zack by the collar of his jumpsuit and lifted him off the ground. As his hands were still healing, he was unable to fight back.

"Hey," said a voice suddenly. "Put him down, jackass."

A woman about Zack's height was walking toward them, her hands on her hips. She had long black hair, with her bangs just starting to cover her crystal blue eyes. Zack didn't have much experience with women, but he had enough to understand that his was physically attracted to her. Nothing more than a release of natural hormones upon seeing a woman who appears to be a good potential mate, he told himself. "He stole my socks!" the man cried, glaring at her.

"Norman, you accuse someone different every week of stealing your socks," she told him, rolling her eyes. "Get lost."

"Socks!"

Sighing, the woman bent down and took off her shoes, followed by her socks. "You want these?" she asked, dangling them in front of the man. His eyes became large and he nodded weakly. "Set him down and… go fetch!" She tossed the socks to the other side of the cafeteria.

He dropped Zack to the floor and chased after them. The woman put her shoes back on, sockless. "Thank you," Zack said, looking up at her as he began to stand up again. "With his height and weight compared to my height and weight, if I had been forced to fight back, the consequences would have been catastrophic to my health."

"No problem," she said, smiling. "Hi, by the way. I'm Alexandra. Call me Alex." She offered him her hand to shake.

Simply staring at her hand, he said, "I'm Zachary. Call me Zack."

"You're supposed to shake it, you know," she chuckled, referring to her hand.

He held up his hands, which were still covered by the mittens while he recovered. "Shaking hands with someone of your strength, which I have mentally calculated by observing your visible muscle mass, would most likely be detrimental to my recovery."

"Ah," she said, retracting her hand and folding her arms across her chest instead. "What happened?"

"I was performing an experiment, but I allowed the solution to heat for a few seconds too long," he said, trying to simplify his vocabulary for her. "The result was a rapid expansion of gas and a combustion reaction."

"So," Alex said, "it exploded and you burned your hands."

"Yes," he replied, surprised by how much she understood him. "Quite badly."

"Well, that sucks," she sighed. Glancing around the cafeteria, she sat down in the chair across from the one he had been occupying a few minutes before. He sat down across from her. "I've seen you around here for a few months. You don't seem like you belong here."

"It is quite the tedious tale," he told her elusively.

"I see, you don't want to talk about it," she said knowingly. Shrugging, she said, "Just trying to make conversation."

"What are you in for?" he asked, using what he deemed to be a colloquial phrase.

Eyeing him curiously, she replied, "That's a little personal for someone I just met, Zack."

Shrugging, he echoed, "Just trying to make conversation." She reluctantly grinned and rolled her eyes. "Is it improper for me to query as to how long you have been here?"

"No, that's perfectly proper," she told him. "About two years. And you?"

"Only a few months," he replied. "Are you aware of how much time you are obligated to spend here?"

"No," she replied shortly. "I can leave whenever the state psychiatrist clears me. What about you?"

"About a year," he replied. Using a phrase he had once heard Hodgins use, he said, "Look, I'll show you mine if you show me yours."

Her eyebrows nearly jumped off of her forehead. "I'm sorry, what?!"

"Alex," he said, "I will tell you what I did to get in here if you tell me. Your reason cannot possibly be worse." He had no idea why he was willing to share his deepest shame with someone he had just met ten minutes ago, but he supposed that it had something to do with the fact that she was the only person in the asylum who had spoken to him since he had arrived. And she had stood up for him.

"You'd be surprised," she muttered, more to herself than to anyone else. Sighing, she crossed her arms again and slumped down in her chair. "Fine."

He launched into his story, beginning with his working at the Jeffersonian. As he finished, he said, "But my logic was flawed. I was willing to risk my own life to save Hodgins, so why would I be willing to murder other people? Not only was what I did morally wrong, but it made no sense. I should have known better than to be so irrational."

"Wow," she whistled, leaning back in her chair when he was done. "That's the shit."

"'That's the shit'?" he echoed. "Is that a colloquialism?"

"Yes," she nodded, smiling at him. "I supposed I should tell you what I did to get in here."

"That was your end of the bargain."

"My father had Duchenne's muscular dystrophy," she replied.

"Yes, an absence of a certain muscle protein-"

"I know what it is, Zack," she interrupted. "Anyway, he was getting worse. And he committed suicide. About a month later, I tried to commit suicide."

He was speechless for a few moments, staring at her unblinkingly. Finally, he stammered out, "That does not make logical sense."

Looking at him intently, she asked, "I know, Zack. But haven't you ever been so overwhelmed by your emotions that you couldn't reason anything out?"

"No," he replied simply. "I never saw the logical behind allowing your emotions to cloud your judgment."

"I thought not," she said.

"Why did you stop?" he asked.

"Because my best friends figured out what I was doing," Alex told him. "I was hysterical and inconsolable when they stopped me. They had me committed. I was really pissed off at first, but now I realize that they did it because they love me, and they care about me. They visit me a lot, too."

"I, too, was committed because people love me," Zack allowed himself to admit. "All of them, it would seem. Angela, Hodgins, Dr. Saroyan, Dr. Brennan, Agent Booth…"

"It sounds like they did," she said softly. After a few moments of comfortable silence between the two of them, she brightened and suggested, "Hey, let's go play Egyptian ratscrew in my room."

"Okay," he said, standing. "But I must warn you, I'm not entirely how sure adept I am at sexual intercourse with other species."

"Not what that is, Zack."

TLTBTLTBTLTB

Over the next two months, Zack and Alex became close friends. They spent most of their time together, and every night, Alex would sneak into Zack's room to sleep on the floor. The first night, Zack had assumed that she wanted to sleep with him, but she quickly cleared up the confusion. "I'm only here to sleep on your floor, Zack," she told him firmly. "Nothing else."

One night, he asked her, "Why do you really sneak into my room at night?"

"What?" she asked groggily. She had been drifting off into sleep when his voice had jerked her back to awareness.

"Why do you really sneak into my room at night?" he repeated, rolling onto his side so that he could glance down at her. He had hoped that after initial meeting, his physical reaction to her would disappear, but it was stronger than ever. His hormones were certainly raging. And he felt the inexplicable emotional and physical drive to protect her from any harm that may come her way. He found himself wishing whatever was best for her when he was trying to fall asleep at night.

"I told you, I just get bored on my own," she said, staring up at the ceiling.

"You're lying to me," he said simply. "I've been working on reading minute details of body language, and I've noticed how you avoid eye contact with me whenever you say that. So what is the truth, Alex?"

He heard her sigh and turn on her side so that she was facing away from him. "The silence," she muttered softly. "It drives me utterly insane."

"How so?" he queried. "Silence is merely the absence of noise. And you don't seem to mind when silence fills in the gaps in our conversations."

"No, no," she said. "It's only when I'm alone and it's silent. It… makes me remember why I wanted to kill myself all over again."

He squeezed his eyes shut, trying not to imagine Alex shooting herself, slitting her wrists… "I just see my dad over and over again," she told him. "I see his lifeless body lying on the bathroom floor, long cuts down his arms. When it's silent and I'm alone, I can convince myself that life's not worth living."

"And how does my presence aid in avoiding such thoughts?" he asked.

"I don't honestly know," she told him. "For some reason, around you, I feel safe. Not only from other people, but from myself."

"But… why?" he said. "I am no warrior or soldier, like Booth was. How do you expect me to protect you?"

"I don't really know," she admitted. "But… you're the best thing that's happened to me ever since I was committed. I can just imagine you talking me out of committing suicide using your 'logic.'" She chuckled dryly in the darkness.

"I would," he assured her. "It does not make logical sense for you to kill yourself. What good would that do?"

"I know that it's illogical, Zack," she told him, rolling her eyes despite the fact that he couldn't see her. "But… most people tend to abandon logic when they become overwhelmed with emotion."

"That leads to rash decisions," he stated.

"True," she replied, rolling onto her other side so that she was facing his direction again. "But, on the other hand, sometimes you need to. I think you abandon emotion most of the time because you prefer logic. It's your comfort zone."

"Are you insinuating that I do not have emotions?" he asked, feeling the sting of her perceived comment. "Because that is most certainly false."

"That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that you prefer not to dwell on your emotions, and you usually do not understand how to cope with them," she corrected him.

"That would be accurate," he sighed. "I just have trouble ignoring logic."

"Maybe I can help you there, eh?" she said. "As long as you help me ignore my emotions when I need to."

"I accept your proposition," he yawned.

"Are you tired?"

"Exhausted."

"Good night, Zack."

"Good night, Alex."