Title: A Perfect Match (1/1)
Fandom: Bones
Summary: Zack meets his perfect match to talk nerdy with. (A must-read for fans of BattleStar Galactica, Firefly, Stargate SG-1, Stargate: Atlantis, and Star Wars. Not necessarily in that order.)
Rating: G
Pairings/Characters: Zack Addy/Christine Bell (OC)
Length: 1,000 words
Genres: humor, romance
Spoilers: minor spoilers for Judas On A Pole... Even though I haven't even seen that ep. lol.
A/N: My sister always tells me I'm Zack's perfect match because I love all the nerdy shows he does (scifi rules forever!), and I've been thinking forever that I need to write a fic with someone who's even more like Zack's perfect match than I am. SO, I finally sat down at wrote it! And here I get to amply display my nerdiness with all of the scifi references. All it's missing is a X-Files reference (which I wasn't thinking about when I wrote it) and it would be the perfect nerd fic. :D

A Perfect Match

Shifting his grip on the small cardboard box in his hands, Zack sighed. One and a half doctorates and he was still reduced to being a mere messenger.

His delivery was a piece of evidence from one of their latest cases. The victim, found underneath a boardwalk on the Maine coast, had had it in his pocket. It was some sort of specialized, hi-tech computer chip—Zack was more than good with computers, but this was far beyond him—that had been eroded by more than a week in the Atlantic Ocean.

His mission was taking it down to the Jeffersonian's Computer Science department to see what they could do with it. Zack had adamantly voiced his doubts that anything could be recovered from the highly water-damaged chip, but he had still been stuck with delivery duty.

Sighing again, he passed by a door that boldly proclaimed the "Marine Biology and Oceanography Department." A pair of women—who both wore polo shirts that had the oceanography department's logo on them—stood outside the door, laughing at something on the floor.

He might've bothered to smile at them if they'd even noticed his existence. Seeing as how they didn't, he politely ignored them and moved to walk around them.

"Kaylee!" one woman laughed.

Zack's brain automatically associated the name with the mechanic on Firefly, but he ignored the thought and continued to move past the pair of women.

The one woman went on, "It doesn't look like anything like a Replicator, silly."

Again, Zack's attention was captured. This time, it was enough for him to pause and glance bewilderedly over at the woman who was speaking.

She didn't notice him but continued, "It looks like a lot more like a Cylon. Totally not a Replicator."

Astounded by the woman's back to back references to two shows that he loved, Zack froze and craned his neck to see what the women were looking at. What he saw was a foot-tall silver-plated robot that appeared to be… dancing?

The other woman—Kaylee—scoffed and pointed down at the robot in question. "Nuh-uh, Chris, look at its arms," she said. "It looks like one of those Replicator thingies."

Zack looked over the robot again. "No, miss, your friend's right," he spoke up. "It has arms somewhat like a Replicator, but its overall build is far more like a Cylon. Or like an MD droid."

Both women stopped laughing and blinked at him. The robot stopped dancing.

Feeling unbelievably awkward, Zack instantly regretted saying anything. Hodgins had always told him to keep his mouth shut about his "dorky science fiction crap," and most of the time Zack had listened. This time too, he wished he'd heeded that advice. He was sure he was now blushing a hundred shades of red.

The Kaylee woman folded her arms. "Well, apparently I know nothing," she said. With that, she turned and entered the oceanography wing. But before the door closed behind her, she said over her shoulder, "It's getting too geeky in there for me."

The other woman rolled her eyes and sighed. "Ignore her," she told Zack. "She's always trying to make fun of my fandoms."

Zack hid his surprise and excitement at the woman's use of the word 'fandom'. He didn't think he'd ever heard it used in real conversation before, even though he'd longed to use it on more than one occasion.

Instead of saying something stupid, though, he cleared his throat and pointed to the unmoving robot on the floor. "Did you build that, miss…?"

The woman smiled. "Yeah, pretty much," she answered. "And not 'miss.' It's doctor. Doctor Christine Bell, PhD." She glanced at Zack's lab coat, pushing her glasses further up the bridge of her nose. "And you, Doctor Addy? PhD?"

He nodded, smiling proudly. "I've completed one in forensic anthropology and am halfway through another in engineering."

Doctor Bell smiled. "Shiny," she said.

Zack's heart leapt at the use of Firefly slang, but he quickly regained control and cleared his throat. "And your doctorate, Doctor Bell?"

"Double doctorates, actually," she said. "One in chemical oceanography," she pointed to the door of the oceanography wing, "and a another relatively unused one in computer science. And oddly enough, I'm currently working towards another third in astrophysics."

Zack's breath caught briefly at the last part. "Three doctorates, one in astrophysics," he murmured. "Like Rodney McKay."

Doctor Bell chuckled shortly. "Yeah, pretty much. Except I was hoping the astrophysics doctorate would make me more like Samantha Carter."

Realizing how comparing Doctor Bell to Rodney McKay could be misconstrued as an insult, Zack blushed. "Oh, right, of course. I didn't mean to imply—"

Laughing again, Doctor Bell interrupted him. "Oh, that's quite all right. I don't at all mind having my brain compared to Rodney's. In fact, I'd hope that my IQ and his would be about the same."

"And that would be…?" Zack asked, trying to keep his voice conversational and unexcited.

She grinned slyly. "Oh, not so fast, slick," she said. "You'd have to buy me dinner before you become privy to that sort of information."

The question "Will you marry me?" flashed briefly through Zack's mind, but knowing it was simply an excited response and not at all logical, he quickly discarded it, wondering why it'd crossed his mind in the first place. Suddenly, he remembered the box in his hands and his mission. He opened his mouth to regretfully excuse himself, but a thought occurred to him first.

This woman—whom he was currently very attracted to—had doctorates in both chemical oceanography and computer science. She was utterly perfect, as was this opportunity now staring Zack in the face.

He cleared his throat again. "Well, then, Doctor Bell, what would you say to dinner after you complete a job for the forensics wing?"