She doesn’t want to go back to the hotel so she gets on a bus

She doesn’t want to go back to the hotel so she gets on a bus. She doesn’t really know where she’ll end up, but she hopes it will be the Castro. It’s getting late in the day and she wouldn’t mind an evening spent dancing with hot, scantily clad gay men.

Instead she winds up in the Avenues. She gets on another bus that whisks her back towards the water and the Golden Gate. Angela speeds past the Presidio towards Land’s End (iyou know/i her inner Brennan chimes iWhere the land ends./i)

It’s almost sunset when she reaches the Palace of Fine Arts. She sees families and couples and random teenagers barreling towards the Exploratorium. A little girl with dark hair and pigtails clings to her father’s hand, demanding that he explain the barebacked women perched on top of the columns. This makes Angela smile.

She pays the fourteen dollars to get in. Mostly she zones, looking into the perspective room and watching the little kids blow bubbles with giant metal rings in what looks like a huge metal dip dish. One little girl seems hell bent on putting her soapy fingers through her bubble without it popping. A small blonde boy with an Australian accent jostles behind her, asking if he can use her ring to encase his little brother in what looks like a huge bubble sleeping bag.

Angela gets up and walks away before the ensuing struggle has a chance to begin. She looks down as she walks. There are oval signs on the floor that read different things like “I am interested in lots of things” and “I think logically”.

Suddenly she realizes that she’s completely alone. No Jack, no Brennan, no Zack. ‘Just Ange’ as her father would say on his rare but precious visits. She understands, in this moment, exactly how Zack feels. Or how he’d felt anyway.

She walks outside and leans against one of the columns and looks out onto the duck pond. She takes her cell phone out of her pocket, once again hitting up to get to the bottom of her contacts. She’s never thought about why she’s done this before now, when she realizes that she doesn’t want to have to scroll past Jack’s old number. iI still feel guilty…/i

This makes her feel even guiltier because she can’t stop feeling guilty for Zack, who, to her mind, richly deserves it.

She hits ‘send’.

After the first tone, he answers. “Where are you?”

“Where are iyou/i?” Angela shoots back.

“In the hotel room. You’ve been gone a long time. What’s wrong?”

Angela almost laughs at this. She can’t believe that she didn’t notice before now how much of what she says he takes to heart.

A funny memory comes back to her

i”Do the names Michael Jackson or Joanne Rivers mean anything to you?”

“One of them. The other I’ll look up.”/i

She fights the urge to laugh.

“And when I ask ‘what’s wrong’ what I really mean is ‘what’s wrong besides the fight we had?’”

“This isn’t the best conversation to have over the phone. I’m at the Exploratorium, by the Palace of Fine Arts. I’ll be at the hotel in less then half an hour. I think.” Angela looks around briefly for a bus coming. “Or maybe in more than half an hour...”

“I’ll take a cab.”

Angela looks at her phone incredulously.

“Zack that’s going to be ridiculously expensive. Don’t take a cab down here to pick me up.”

“What? Angela, I can’t hear you. The signal near where you are is being disrupted. I’ll see you when I get there.”

“Wait, Zack.” There’s an audible click. “Dammit!”

She leans back against the huge, sky-kissing pillar. The wind blows off of the Bay and through her hair. She grabs the lapels of her long coat and wraps them tighter around herself, waiting.

Zack shows up almost an hour later. It’s dark and the cab rolls around into the almost empty parking lot.

She was worried this would happen. Not that he would be late, she expected that, but that she would be alone long enough to really think, no distractions, no nothing. Across the pond, house lights shimmer, making her think of home.

She’s been thinking about her and Zack for the past half hour or so. Well, actually, she’d been thinking about her and Zack for the last ihour/i. And for the last half-hour she’d been thinking about her, Zack and Hodgins.

iIt’s like that awful threesome episode of Sex and the City/i she thinks as she watches the cab roll towards her. iEven if it’s just me and Zack, it’s like Hodgins is still there./i That’s when she realizes she’s actually thinking of sleeping with Zack. And more then that, she’s thinking that maybe this would be the right place to run off to with someone. Or rather with Brennan’s geeky grad student. Even worse then that, with Jack’s best friend.

iFormer best friend. How can you have a best friend when you’re dead?/i

A voice a lot like Brennan’s chimes in iHow can you have a girlfriend at that?/i

Zack hops out of the cab, still in his University of Michigan hoodie. It’s so baggy it practically swallows him. Angela turns towards him and before she knows what she’s doing, she breaks into a run. He stands there, waiting for her.

She stops just in front of him. “Is this the part where we kiss? Because my sisters told me that if a girl ever ran up to me like that, she was either going to kiss me or slap me and I’m hoping it’s the former because if you wanted to slap me-”

She kisses him, if only to get him to shut up.

As the fair quickly climbs towards thirty dollars, Zack reaches across the black leather backseat to take her hand.

And the funny thing is, she lets him.

“What did you do while you were gone?”

Zack is lying next to her in his little double bed. Both of them are wearing their clothes except for their shoes. Angela managed to shed her coat as well, but both of them were too tired to eat or do much of anything. As he says this, Zack stifles a yawn.

“I was at the Exploratorium.”

“What’s that? Can we go there tomorrow?”

“It’s like the Jeffersonian for little kids. There’s exhibits about biology and physics and….and…” Angela yawns. “Bubbles.”

“Bubbles? There are no bubbles at the Jeffersonian. And Booth told me that Archie Bunker’s chair is at the Jeffersonian.”

Angela wrinkles her nose at this. “That old guy from iThe Honeymooners/i who beat his wife? How is that an improvement?”

“I don’t….”

Zack shuts his eyes. Angela is loath to trying to keep him up. She’s cold and a little hungry and very tired. She looks at the clock. It’s only 6:57. But she cuddles near him. iOnly because it’s cold and we’re laying on top of the blankets…/i As she wiggles closer, Zack sleepily puts his arm around her. And they lay there, falling asleep, him on his back, her on her side.

Angela’s eyes fly open. She’s breathing hard and in a cold sweat. Her dream is still with her when she wakes up, clawing desperately at nothing.

i-coming at me they’re coming with their green skin that’s so slimy and cold and wet wet like water running after me going to tear me apart hungry so hungry for me-/i

Zack’s hand on her cheek quiets her. She can feel the tears she must have been shedding in her sleep between her face and his palm. “Shhh, Angela, do you hear that?”

Angela quiets her breathing and listens. All she hears are the cars outside, Zack’s quiet breathing mixed with her own and the faint noise of sex from a few rooms away. “No, Zack. All I hear is me and you. And some couple doing it animal style down the hall.”

“Exactly. There’s nothing happening. You’re safe.”

She looks into his face. She can barely believe it. For once in his life, Zack’s said the right thing. “Where did you learn that Zack?”

“From my brother, Tim. We shared a room in Michigan before he went away to college. When I’d have nightmares, he’d wake me up. He knew me well enough to know that something that logical was the right thing to say.”

They relax. They are curled into each other like a couple of dogs. They lay like that for a while when Angela says “Are you hungry?”

Zack responds immediately, “Starving.”

They sit up. Angela shakes out her hair, waking herself up. “Will we be able to get anything to eat at this time of night…ah…morning?” Zack asks her.

“You’ve never stayed at a nice hotel before have you Zack?”

He shakes his head. “My family was too big as a child and now, all my money goes towards living expenses and the occasional DVD.”

“Well then you are clearly unaware of the glory of late-night-or-early-morning-as-the- case-may-be-room-service. Hand me the phone and press one, Z-man.” She dramatically thrusts her hand forward, her palm open.

He grins and sets the phone in her palm. She glances at the clock. It’s three o clock. This doesn’t phase her. She snatches the menu from the little lamp table and hands it to Zack. She tucks her feet under the dress of her white skirt, folding them ‘Indian style’.

“Hello, Room Service.”

“Hi, this is room 505. We’d like to order…uh..I suppose…an early breakfast.” She sees Zack shaking his head adamantly out of the corner of her eye. He points to the grilled cheese sandwich with bacon on the menu. She smiles at him and winks.

“What would you like to order Miss?”

“Blueberry pancakes, don’t skimp on anything, the whipped cream, the sugar, anything. No one in this room is on a diet.” The man on the other end of the line chuckles. “Okay ma’am. Anything else?”

Angela initiates her attack plan. “See, here’s the thing. My roommate was wondering if he could get a grilled cheese with bacon. I know that it’s on the lunch menu and it’s not quite lunchtime but I was wondering if there was any way you could rustle it up for us?”

She’s all charm and sweet understanding. The room service guy doesn’t stand a chance. “Oh, that shouldn’t be too difficult. It’s not like he’d like the grilled sea bass or something.”

“Thanks. So we’ll see you in about an hour?”

“Oh no! More like forty-five minutes.”

“Gre-at.” Angela hangs up the phone and looks at the clock again. 3:14.

iPi/i she thinks randomly. And then it rushes back to her. Today is the day.

The day.

One year later.

It’s like a bad ending to a movie. All of a sudden, it’s a year later and they don’t tell you anything, you just have to pick up where all the characters are immediately, no chance to recover from what had just happened.

A year ago today, Hodgins was still alive. Until he wasn’t.

Suddenly everything seems unbearably heavy to her, even the air she was breathing. “Zack,” she whispers.

“Yes?” He follows her sightline to the clock. “Pi.”

He almost smiles. “Today…the date…Zack,” she’s never felt this inarticulate in her whole life. She thought she would be over it by now. But it just felt like a dull ache instead of the razor sharp shred of 364 days before.

“It’s November 16-” He stops and can only look at her. It seems that all of his pontification about rational thought is gone. One year ago today was the last day he’d had with his best friend. “I-” he starts, at a loss for words.

Angela, sitting next to him on the bed, puts her hand to the side of his head, scratching lightly with her fingertips at his scalp. He leans forward and puts his head on her shoulder. She leans her cheek against his head. They stay like that for a while before the Room Service guy knocks on the door.

Angela never mentions it to anyone.

After they eat, they curl up again and go back to sleep.

Angela feels warm and very heavy after eating all those pancakes. Zack’s breath smells a little funny to her as she drifts off.

iJust be glad to be here…/i she thinks hazily.

She dreams that she’s digging.

It seems like she’s been at it for hours in this quarry. The light turns off, just as she reaches the top of Brennan’s SUV.

She kicks in the moon roof, breathing in the gust of stale, metallic air.

i the metal smell is blood/i

There’s nothing inside. A pile of white dust sits in a bloodstain on the back seat. A pair of feet sits on the floor in front of it.

She exhales and the white dust disappears. iOne year later…/i the dust seems to whisper.

Brennan sits in the driver’s seat. “The truth is in the bones, Ange. They can’t lie.”

And then she’s gone too.

And all that’s left is Angela. And the feet.

Angela wakes up to Zack’s hand on her breast. She looks at him. He’s still asleep. She twists slightly to get up.

She goes to the bathroom. She pees and washes her hands. She walks out. It’s still the day. She’s grateful for the time change. She can’t tell what time it is back home without thinking about it, which she is all to happy to avoid doing.

She sits on her bed and lets Zack sleep. It’s almost eleven and they hadn’t gotten back to sleep until about 5 after the food.

She knows she’s waiting for something. She stresses it to herself over and over.

iToday was the last time you saw Jack. You’ll never see him again. This is only the first of many./i

She feels like something important should happen, that the world should stop for this. But it doesn’t, the same way it didn’t stop turning on the actual day. One year ago.

Angela stands up and walks over to Zack in his bed. She sits on the edge of the bed and runs her index finger down the bridge of his nose, starting between his eyebrows. She does this a few times and he frowns in his sleep, his eyes fluttering open.

“Angela? Why aren’t you naked? When I have this dream you’re usually naked.”

Angela looks at him, one eyebrow raised. She’s amazed that she’s caught him at a moment in which he would admit to something like that.

“Well, that could be arranged…” she says loftily. “But right now, you need to get out of bed-”

This was met with a groan,

“And come on our field trip.”

“Field trip? To where?”

Angela smiles slyly at him. “The field.”

It’s not quite as momentous as she’d imagined but the day was still there to be seized. Angela held Zack’s hand as they walked into the Exploratorium again.

She knew exactly where she was going to take him.

The piano hung, suspended off the ground with chains. From an artistic perspective it was quite postmodern Angela thought. The sign on the ground beneath it read “I am not afraid to stand under a piano.” This was written over a large black, white and red bulls-eye.

Swarms of little kids passed by, like a noisy ocean. Zack and Angela stood under the piano, holding hands and looking up at it. Finally, Zack looked at her, quite perplexed. “Why are we doing this?”

“Well,” said Angela. “I’m not really sure. I guess…I was afraid before. But I’m not really now.”

“I see,” Zack said, nodding. “So… this is some symbolic gesture that means we can have sex now?”

Angela burst out laughing. “I guess it is. Or maybe,” she began mischievously, “It’s like a Magritte painting and I’m just not afraid to stand under a piano.”

Angela finally understood her mother’s aversion to hotel duvets.

As soon as the two of them had gotten back from the Exploratorium (and the Palace of Fine Arts, which Angela had dragged Zack through), Angela had slammed the door behind them and pushed Zack down on the bed by the wall.

He didn’t say anything, which had surprised Angela; she had always figured Zack for a ‘bad talk during’ kind of guy. And while she was stripping off his U of M hoodie (she had come to believe it was the only jacket he had packed), she kept almost getting the giggles, thinking that she was about to sleep with Brennan’s grad student.

iI’m not even drunk/i she thought. iI have no excuse./i

As she takes off her shirt and Zack runs his hands up her sides, Angela wonders if this is the sanest thing she’s ever done or the stupidest.

iZack is probably the smartest guy I’ve ever slept with./i

She pushes this thought away as it smacks of a one-night stand.

He fumbles with his fly and she can see why Naomi wasn’t so quick to call back that first time. She peels off his t-shirt and kisses him. She knows this will calm him down a little and, as she straddles him, it occurs to her that she might actually love Zack after all this time and all the lunches and iare you alright?/is.

“Zack,”

“Uh..yes, Angela?”

She gives him a knowing look. “Don’t worry. Everything will be alright.”

Zack gives her a perplexed look for a moment and realizes what she means. His eyes light up. “You’ve read iWorld War Z/i too?”

She’s tempted to laugh at the childish happiness on his face, that’s there despite the topless woman straddling him and not because of it. “Yes. Hodgins lent it to me. He said that you loved it.”

And then something a little strange happens, considering the circumstances: he sits up and hugs her.

Angela thinks it’s probably the sweetest thing that’s ever happened to her. Until he starts sucking at her tits. Then she doesn’t think about much at all.

On the flight back to D.C. both of them sit in silence, Angela with her earbuds in and Zack, once again, typing furiously away at his computer.

Angela briefly casts her mind back to the last few days. iA year ago today, Hodgins would be dead./i The thought is bittersweet in it’s finality and in it’s usefulness.

She turns to Zack, who stops typing for a moment to smile at her and kiss her. Angela smiles back.

“You know,” she says. “I like San Francisco a lot. The vibe of the place just feels right to me you know?”

Zack nods, looking at her. She likes that he’s not suggesting it himself, that he’s waiting for her to say it.

iOh bullshit, Angie, you just want to imagine he’s on the same page as you./i

“I think…I could live there.”

Zack nods again and turns back to his computer. “Yes,” he replies. “I like it there.”

She thinks that Hodgins would roll over in his grave.