I dub this: The Chapter That Would Not Be Written No Matter How Much I Begged It. Please enjoy my pain.

Shopping with Angela was like training for the Olympics, and Shilloh was fairly certain that, by the end of the day, she'd be able to win the gold.

It was exhausting, being pulled from one store to the other, being essentially forced into clothing items she had absolutely no intention of ever wearing because Angela thought they would look cute. Or sexy. Or, once, geek-chic, which had confused Shilloh to no end; how could geek ever be chic? Apparently, though, it could, and Angela proclaimed that the outfit would only be enhanced by high-heels; maybe even pushing it into the category of sexy-geek. How there could be so many styles revolving around geek, she did not know; after all, she had assumed that there was just the one, and that she proudly sported it by wearing her Jayne Cobb hat that her friend had knitted her, or by wearing her twenty-sided die necklace on days she needed a little bit of extra luck.

These things, according to Angela, were guy-geek, and the fact that Shilloh found nothing wrong with wearing these types of items with her every day outfits instead of as enhancements to a type of style, was a clear indicator that Angela was doing some sort of community service and should be applauded for the amount of work she was going to have to put in to updating Shilloh's wardrobe.

"It doesn't bother you?" Zach asked, standing next to her while she pushed shirts around listlessly on a rack, waiting patiently for Angela to return from the other side of the store.

"Bother me?" Shilloh looked up at him questioningly, eyebrows furrowed slightly, "I think you need to clarify for me, I'm not so good at determining what other people mean when they only give me partial details," she returned to pushing the shirts around; she had given up on choosing her own clothing two stores ago, and now only gave off the appearance of actively searching out clothes to keep Angela happy.

"That Angela has told you your clothing choices are not acceptable? I have been told by Hodgins that women often feel insulted when their clothing is not deemed fashionable, though I do not understand why," he was looking through the shirts now, too, though Shilloh didn't really know why, since they were all women's. She supposed it was because he had finally hit his boredom tolerance.

"No, it doesn't bother me; I'm lucky to have her telling me how to dress more- erm- fashionably," Shilloh shrugged, holding up a layered tank top with blue accents, eyeing it critically before placing it back on the rack, "outside of work I don't care how I look, not really, but now that I'm in a professional setting, my appearance is going to reflect how seriously I take myself and thus my work, so I need to look good. I don't know how to do that, and Angela doesn't care how I dress, she's just giving me pointers on how to accentuate my inherent 'style' and make it more professional. Not that I knew I had a style, which is another reason I'm really glad I have Angela here telling me what looks good and what doesn't." She was now looking at a similarly layered shirt, this one with blue stripes on the top layer, a solid blue on the middle, and white along the bottom.

She played with the thin blue shoulder straps, wondering if the slight ruffling of each layer would look good on her, or 'hide her figure' as Angela had put it. Her friend had been giving her tips on the way certain cuts of clothing could make her look thinner, or curvier, or hide her muffin top, or really just about anything she wanted; Shilloh wasn't really getting it, though. With a sigh, she replaced the top on the rack, wishing Angela would get back soon so she'd know what to try on without having to guess.

"You should try it," Zach said, holding the top out to her, a slightly awkward tilt to his head that belied how uncomfortable he was with even just implying that he thought it would look good on her; something Shilloh had been laughing at all day. Angela kept forcing him to be a participant in the 'fashion shows' that Shilloh would put on, trying to determine what clothes looked best, and he kept awkwardly trying to deflect the 'doesn't that look good on her?' question. He was smart enough to know that, with Angela, there was no way for him to win, no matter how he answered.

But Angela wasn't here right now, and he thought that maybe it would be alright with Shilloh if he told her, from a guy's perspective, that the top she had clearly wanted, would look good on her. After all, she was going to help him choose clothing that looked good, and it seemed right to try and return the favor.

"Thanks, Zach, I think I will; I'll be right back," she smiled at him as she wound her hands around the hanger, then twirled off to the changing rooms. Twirled wasn't really a word usually used to describe the way someone moved, but he felt confident that it accurately described the way she seemed to walk- almost as if she was always surprised to end up at her destination. If he was one for metaphor, which he was not, he would say that, sometimes, she reminded him of a flock of birds that was frightened into flight: scattering about randomly and yet somehow always ending up gracefully flying together, turning in synch and stretching up like ink into the sky. But he wasn't one for metaphor, and so that wasn't something Zach thought; it was, however, something that itched at the back of his mind irrationally, until he got bored of standing in front of a rack of women's clothing and moved to the perfume counter; where he thought he might be able to waste time by trying to label the different chemicals used in them through smell alone.

Maybe it would even help him be King of the Lab on Monday, though he sincerely doubted it.

Shilloh returned three minutes later, smiling brightly up at him, the shirt still in hand, "I like it," she said simply, shuffling up next to him. "You know, I wanted to buy some perfume today; I was hoping it would maybe cancel out the smell of Bob's lunches," she sighed as she looked in her wallet, then glanced at the prices of the perfume bottles, "but, I think it can wait another day."

"There you two are!" Angela said from the end of the isle, three bags dangling from her left arm, "I thought I'd left you in a different store or something."

"Nope, still here," Shilloh laughed, then glanced over at Zach, "Ange, I think I've got everything I need, minus the coat, so I think it's time we focus our attention on Mr. Addy here," Shilloh's smile grew in size as he looked between the two women, very slight panic taking him over: after all, he'd seen the torture Shilloh had just gone through, and he wanted no part in it.

OOO

It wasn't as bad as Zach had initially feared, being drug around the mall and forced to try on pants and shirts. Angela had even handed him a new pair of shoes that she told him would work great with any of his outfits.

It was a little awkward, though, having them both look at him with assessing eyes as he would stand in front of them, some new button-up shirt or casual looking jeans on; waiting for them to tell him how he looked. He knew that neither of them were judging him in an unkind manner, but it was still judgement none-the-less, and he felt enough pressure that he couldn't help but stand with perfect posture throughout their looks.

He knew he wasn't the typically handsome male, didn't have a strong chiseled jaw or the appropriately broad but well-defined shoulders that society found pleasing; that didn't mean that he didn't feel some amount of pride in his physical appearance, though. And so it was, that whenever Shilloh or Angela would shake their heads at him and say that the outfit wasn't right, he couldn't help but feel a little stung, as if they were saying that he wasn't good-looking enough to pull off the acid-washed jeans or the bright Hawaiian shirt.

He liked Hawaiian shirts.

"You know, Zach, I think you would look absolutely phenomenal in this," Shilloh told him, holding up a soft brown zip-up hoodie, "pair it with those light-colored jeans Angela made you buy and any one of your t-shirts that isn't Hawaiian or striped, and you've got a great outfit. Something you can wear when you ask Naomi if she wants to have lunch with you."

Zach frowned down at the article of clothing, wondering just how much he was going to have to buy today- he'd already purchased two pairs of pants, three shirts, and a pair of shoes.

"I was actually thinking to ask her out to coffee instead; it seemed a more stress-free option. That way, if it doesn't go well it would be easier for her to leave without feeling obligated to stay until the check had arrived," he didn't bother going into the changing room to try on the hoodie, simply peeled it off the hanger and slipped his arms into it, rolling his shoulders around to test if it would be too restricting of movement.

"That's very thoughtful. I'm sure coffee will go over perfectly though, and then you can wear this when you ask her to lunch. Wear that graphic tee you had to wrestle from Angela's hands to buy, and your dark pants- it looks much more 'you.' It's important to give a good impression, of course, but you also want the other person to know who they're saying yes to," Shilloh said, nodding at the brown hoodie, then putting her hands on Zach's shoulders and forcing him to turn for her so she could see it at different angles.

"Yes, that makes sense, thank you or the advice. I ask others, but most seem to feel uncomfortable when I do; I believe I am going about it wrong," he said, resigning himself to the mild man-handling.

"Yeah well, don't get used to it, I'm not so good at relationships myself," Shilloh pulled the hoodie off of him, putting it back on the hanger, then said, "I think you need one size up in this, but otherwise it looks great, you should get it."

Zach sighed slightly, but nodded his head and reached for the same hoodie in a larger size, already cringing at the sizable dent in his savings this excursion had cost him.

Sorry that it's another short one guys, but the next chapter should be the last one before we get to (tenuously) The Man In The Fallout Shelter. Hopefully. It might be more the next chapter is like this, and the one after is the very super beginning of The Man In The Fallout Shelter. But whatever.

I can't believe it's taken me this long to get to this point, I honestly can't. When I first started this story, (I sound like one of those people, you know: when I was young) it sprung from the idea of how Hodgins and Zach would react to insane driving on a country road. And I figured it'd only take, at most, 10,000 words to set everything up and get into the actual plot of the story, as well as to start writing about the cases. As it is, I'm almost 40,000 words in, haven't gotten to the Bones episodes yet, and still haven't begun to introduce my very thin plot; though there are small traces of it here and there, if you squint a bit.

Mostly, what I'm saying here, is thank you for sticking with me thus far, and for liking this story even when I haven't gotten to the good stuff yet. And let me tell you right now, based on the things I have planned, this is going to be a long story.

So yeah, thanks for staying with me, for all the reviews, the favorites, and the alerts; it helps me a lot, knowing that you all like it already, even when I feel like I'm still at the baby stages of this story. Hopefully that thought doesn't scare you all away.