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zarahemlaThis came out the way it came out because of the character whose point of view it is from. And yet I still like it even though it's fairly stilted and stiff. Also, I will leave the stories of B-squared getting it on to those of you who are so good at it. I like UST resolution as much as the next squealing fangirl, but I also really really just kind of like them the way they are.
Onward.
Title: Zack in Iraq, and other stories
Author: Zara Hemla
Site: If
Fandom: Bones
Rating: PG13
Summary: And Zack is, but they don't.
Zack in Iraq, and other stories
--------------------------------
one.
no thing of consequence can grow
--------------------------------
In Basra they took his name away and he became Addy. Just Addy, usually barked in a manner demonstrating clear impatience and no respect at all for his knowledge base or intelligence. Addy, get over here. Addy, tell me what the hell this is. Addy, get on the damn truck already. Addy, quit coughing, it's just dust. Addy, finish that report. Zack was used to reports, had typed a substantive number of them for the Jeffersonian, but the military requires reports piled on reports; reports in triplicate; reports typed laboriously on a computer that had most definitely seen better days and printed on a dot matrix printer.
When he'd first landed the air had actually taken his breath away, and not in the sense of romantic hyperbole. Basra was so hot that he'd felt moisture being sucked out of his body into the atmosphere. Nowhere was cooler: not the medics' quarters, not the infirmary, not even the morgue. Scuttlebutt said that the general had AC in his office, but Zack was never invited there. He ate with the grunts and ran errands for the officers and always, always, it was, Addy, what killed this guy, Addy, use your magic to ID this severed leg, Addy, what are you, some kind of robot or something?
In basic training he had told himself every night that this was the right thing to do. The function of patriotism in society is to encourage protection of that society. Patriotism serves a purpose. It is a correct cause to support. And in Fort Benning he had believed it could work, that he could be a cog in a larger machine. A perfectly aligned cog with no
friction. But as soon as he stepped off the plane he knew his cog would never fit. The letter had been a lie; no one in the Army valued his expertise or his particular skills. To them he was an encyclopedia, a book taken off the shelf and opened when necessary.
He determined causes of death: sniper, grenade, rocket launcher, strangulation, fall from a helicopter. He saw limbs taken off by shrapnel; vehicles overturned by the physics of a mine; fire and return fire. He saw the Rangers head to Tikrit and he saw them return with depleted ranks. He saw prisoners and refugees, marines and MPs. He tried to interact but never said the right thing. After three months the CO called him into his office. He was a large man, very fit, with a serious expression and yellow teeth (smoking, Zack decided, judging by the striations on his enamel).
"Addy," he said, "I do not think this job is right for you."
"I've done everything you asked me," said Zack.
"Son, you just don't fit into the Army."
Zack frowned at him. "I don't understand. And I'm not your son. My father lives in Michigan."
The CO sighed and eyed him again. "That's exactly what I mean, Addy. You're severely lacking in people skills. So lacking, in fact, that I cannot recommend an extension to your trial period."
"But I did what you asked!"
The CO sighed again. "Now you say, 'Yes sir,' Addy. That's what you say. Then you go back and pack your bags and get on the first space-A home. Dismissed, Addy."
And so he was dismissed. Nothing saved him and he went back home to a silver skeleton and people who thought he'd changed, even though he hadn't changed. Not really.
------------------------------------------
two.
things they can't and won't feel sorry for
------------------------------------------
Zack finds Booth on the upper balcony, eating something (Booth is always eating something or squeezing something or clicking his tongue or talking incomprehensibly). He is also reading a sports magazine and leaning back in his chair, utterly boneless, like a man with no worries at all. When Zack attempts to engage him in dialogue, he puts down the magazine and stares at Zack with his dark unreadable eyes. Zack mentions how he saw the Rangers go out on maneuvers: Booth just cocks his head, takes a bite of whatever.
So Zack panicks and actually tells Booth about his biggest fear. About the dreams. Not everything: not about the silver skeleton leading him by the hand. But about Limbo and the drawers full of dead soldiers' bodies. About knowing all the people in the drawers. About how sometimes they speak.
"There was no ... justice to find," he says to Booth. "No overarching purpose to accomplish."
"War's not about purpose," Booth replies. He is looking at Zach but in some way Zach can't identify, it's like he's also miles away. "It's about money or politics or land. It's someone else's dirty business. You just do what you're told."
"I did what I was told!" Zack says, exasperated. "I just ... did it wrong."
"You're missing an essential quality which makes you perfect for this lab but absolutely wrong for the Army," says Booth. "It's something you and Bones both have to work on, but as usual she's further ahead than you." He flashes his sudden grin. "It's called empathy."
"Oh," says Zack.
"Yeah ... the stupidest nineteen year old kid from Rancho Redneck has it," says Booth, and he stands up, "but you musta been standing behind the door when they gave it out."
"When who gave it out?" says Zack, but Booth doesn't answer. He puts an open hand on Zack's shoulder (approval) and says, "The dreams will go away after awhile. Just be patient."
And Zack is, but they don't.
------------------------------------------
three.
and it's dark and there is nobody driving
-------------------------------------------
The dream that he doesn't tell Booth about goes like this: the silver skeleton comes and takes him by the hand out of his bed and leads him downstairs, into Hodgins's garage. The skeleton picks out the old black convertible Rolls that belonged to Hodgins's grandpa, the one that doesn't run, but when the skeleton gets in it, the motor purrs just fine.
Zack gets in the passenger side and the skeleton begins to drive out onto the state road; Zack can feel the wind whistling through his hair and hear the cicadas even though he knows, he *knows*, it's a dream. The skeleton is telling him very important things (none of which he will remember after he wakes up, slick with sweat, in the room above the garage).
And then suddenly Zack knows they are on the road to Tikrit and there are mines everywhere, and just as he is about to tell the skeleton he hears a familiar "click-click" and he looks over and Dr Brennan is the silver skeleton, and then the Rolls blows up and the two of them shoot into the air like rockets, but Dr Brennan's skeleton, Bones's bones, are coming apart and falling over him, silver as stars.
That's the dream he doesn't tell anyone until the plasma conference. Zack isn't even sure why they sent him -- Hodgins would have been a better candidate but he turned it down because he was meeting with the PI about Angela's first husband. The plasma conference is where Zack takes copious notes on magnetic energy fusion science.
It's actually quite fascinating and he is still paging through the literature at dinner when he is approached by an older man, grey-bearded, debonair. (When he smiles there is something wrong with his teeth, but Zack doesn't notice what it is until it is much too late, until the logic has closed its own cold teeth around his heart.)
"May I join you, Doctor Addy?" he asks. He has a slight accent, but Zack isn't good with accents.
"How do you know me?"
"Everyone has heard of your work at the Jeffersonian Institute, Dr Addy," says the man, taking the chair across from Zack. "Myself ... and my colleagues ... quite admire your excellent, exacting work."
"You do?" Zack smiles: he can't wait to tell Hodgins. Who'd be king of the lab then?
"Oh yes. We've heard so much about your logical prowess. I admit, I've been rather interested in meeting you. You see, I have a logical problem I'd like to put before you."
"Certainly." Zack smiles at the man, not realizing he will never know His name. Thinking, in that short moment before everything splinters, that finally he's found an intellectual equal. Leaning forward -- eager -- taking the skeleton's hand.
--end--
note: chapter headings taken from the song "Cotton" by the Mountain Goats.
Onward.
Title: Zack in Iraq, and other stories
Author: Zara Hemla
Site: If
Fandom: Bones
Rating: PG13
Summary: And Zack is, but they don't.
Zack in Iraq, and other stories
--------------------------------
one.
no thing of consequence can grow
--------------------------------
In Basra they took his name away and he became Addy. Just Addy, usually barked in a manner demonstrating clear impatience and no respect at all for his knowledge base or intelligence. Addy, get over here. Addy, tell me what the hell this is. Addy, get on the damn truck already. Addy, quit coughing, it's just dust. Addy, finish that report. Zack was used to reports, had typed a substantive number of them for the Jeffersonian, but the military requires reports piled on reports; reports in triplicate; reports typed laboriously on a computer that had most definitely seen better days and printed on a dot matrix printer.
When he'd first landed the air had actually taken his breath away, and not in the sense of romantic hyperbole. Basra was so hot that he'd felt moisture being sucked out of his body into the atmosphere. Nowhere was cooler: not the medics' quarters, not the infirmary, not even the morgue. Scuttlebutt said that the general had AC in his office, but Zack was never invited there. He ate with the grunts and ran errands for the officers and always, always, it was, Addy, what killed this guy, Addy, use your magic to ID this severed leg, Addy, what are you, some kind of robot or something?
In basic training he had told himself every night that this was the right thing to do. The function of patriotism in society is to encourage protection of that society. Patriotism serves a purpose. It is a correct cause to support. And in Fort Benning he had believed it could work, that he could be a cog in a larger machine. A perfectly aligned cog with no
friction. But as soon as he stepped off the plane he knew his cog would never fit. The letter had been a lie; no one in the Army valued his expertise or his particular skills. To them he was an encyclopedia, a book taken off the shelf and opened when necessary.
He determined causes of death: sniper, grenade, rocket launcher, strangulation, fall from a helicopter. He saw limbs taken off by shrapnel; vehicles overturned by the physics of a mine; fire and return fire. He saw the Rangers head to Tikrit and he saw them return with depleted ranks. He saw prisoners and refugees, marines and MPs. He tried to interact but never said the right thing. After three months the CO called him into his office. He was a large man, very fit, with a serious expression and yellow teeth (smoking, Zack decided, judging by the striations on his enamel).
"Addy," he said, "I do not think this job is right for you."
"I've done everything you asked me," said Zack.
"Son, you just don't fit into the Army."
Zack frowned at him. "I don't understand. And I'm not your son. My father lives in Michigan."
The CO sighed and eyed him again. "That's exactly what I mean, Addy. You're severely lacking in people skills. So lacking, in fact, that I cannot recommend an extension to your trial period."
"But I did what you asked!"
The CO sighed again. "Now you say, 'Yes sir,' Addy. That's what you say. Then you go back and pack your bags and get on the first space-A home. Dismissed, Addy."
And so he was dismissed. Nothing saved him and he went back home to a silver skeleton and people who thought he'd changed, even though he hadn't changed. Not really.
------------------------------------------
two.
things they can't and won't feel sorry for
------------------------------------------
Zack finds Booth on the upper balcony, eating something (Booth is always eating something or squeezing something or clicking his tongue or talking incomprehensibly). He is also reading a sports magazine and leaning back in his chair, utterly boneless, like a man with no worries at all. When Zack attempts to engage him in dialogue, he puts down the magazine and stares at Zack with his dark unreadable eyes. Zack mentions how he saw the Rangers go out on maneuvers: Booth just cocks his head, takes a bite of whatever.
So Zack panicks and actually tells Booth about his biggest fear. About the dreams. Not everything: not about the silver skeleton leading him by the hand. But about Limbo and the drawers full of dead soldiers' bodies. About knowing all the people in the drawers. About how sometimes they speak.
"There was no ... justice to find," he says to Booth. "No overarching purpose to accomplish."
"War's not about purpose," Booth replies. He is looking at Zach but in some way Zach can't identify, it's like he's also miles away. "It's about money or politics or land. It's someone else's dirty business. You just do what you're told."
"I did what I was told!" Zack says, exasperated. "I just ... did it wrong."
"You're missing an essential quality which makes you perfect for this lab but absolutely wrong for the Army," says Booth. "It's something you and Bones both have to work on, but as usual she's further ahead than you." He flashes his sudden grin. "It's called empathy."
"Oh," says Zack.
"Yeah ... the stupidest nineteen year old kid from Rancho Redneck has it," says Booth, and he stands up, "but you musta been standing behind the door when they gave it out."
"When who gave it out?" says Zack, but Booth doesn't answer. He puts an open hand on Zack's shoulder (approval) and says, "The dreams will go away after awhile. Just be patient."
And Zack is, but they don't.
------------------------------------------
three.
and it's dark and there is nobody driving
-------------------------------------------
The dream that he doesn't tell Booth about goes like this: the silver skeleton comes and takes him by the hand out of his bed and leads him downstairs, into Hodgins's garage. The skeleton picks out the old black convertible Rolls that belonged to Hodgins's grandpa, the one that doesn't run, but when the skeleton gets in it, the motor purrs just fine.
Zack gets in the passenger side and the skeleton begins to drive out onto the state road; Zack can feel the wind whistling through his hair and hear the cicadas even though he knows, he *knows*, it's a dream. The skeleton is telling him very important things (none of which he will remember after he wakes up, slick with sweat, in the room above the garage).
And then suddenly Zack knows they are on the road to Tikrit and there are mines everywhere, and just as he is about to tell the skeleton he hears a familiar "click-click" and he looks over and Dr Brennan is the silver skeleton, and then the Rolls blows up and the two of them shoot into the air like rockets, but Dr Brennan's skeleton, Bones's bones, are coming apart and falling over him, silver as stars.
That's the dream he doesn't tell anyone until the plasma conference. Zack isn't even sure why they sent him -- Hodgins would have been a better candidate but he turned it down because he was meeting with the PI about Angela's first husband. The plasma conference is where Zack takes copious notes on magnetic energy fusion science.
It's actually quite fascinating and he is still paging through the literature at dinner when he is approached by an older man, grey-bearded, debonair. (When he smiles there is something wrong with his teeth, but Zack doesn't notice what it is until it is much too late, until the logic has closed its own cold teeth around his heart.)
"May I join you, Doctor Addy?" he asks. He has a slight accent, but Zack isn't good with accents.
"How do you know me?"
"Everyone has heard of your work at the Jeffersonian Institute, Dr Addy," says the man, taking the chair across from Zack. "Myself ... and my colleagues ... quite admire your excellent, exacting work."
"You do?" Zack smiles: he can't wait to tell Hodgins. Who'd be king of the lab then?
"Oh yes. We've heard so much about your logical prowess. I admit, I've been rather interested in meeting you. You see, I have a logical problem I'd like to put before you."
"Certainly." Zack smiles at the man, not realizing he will never know His name. Thinking, in that short moment before everything splinters, that finally he's found an intellectual equal. Leaning forward -- eager -- taking the skeleton's hand.
--end--
note: chapter headings taken from the song "Cotton" by the Mountain Goats.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-18 04:04 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-18 03:52 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-18 09:36 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-18 03:55 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-03-26 12:15 am (UTC)"You do?" Zack smiles: he can't wait to tell Hodgins. Who'd be king of the lab then?
OH ZACK.