Okay! So on my other CZ story, The Eyebrow Lift, a lot of reviewers started requesting that I get Cam and Zach together. (The noise became deafening after a while). I really wanted to do that, but it took a while to formulate a story, because all my earlier attempts were either really silly or really smutty (I haven't decided if I wanna post the smut yet). I hope you CZ guys like this. And you're right, there is a distinct lack of CZ stories out there.

Disclaimer: Evidence that I don't own the show? I'm writing a CZ story! Need more evidence than that?

"Hey, where were you last night?"

Zach looked up from the tibia he was examining and saw Jack a smile on his face.

"Why?"

"I was trying to get you on the intercom, but you didn't answer. I was telling you that the maids and I were playing charades. It wasn't as fun without you, man."

As the memory of the last time he played charades with Jack's maids surfaced (lots of laughing at his expense was a focal point) Zach realised he hadn't come up with a good lie to tell Jack about the whereabouts the night before.

"Um...I went to the games store."

"Cool! What did you get?" Jack asked. They often traded video games.

"I...I didn't get anything. I just...browsed."

"Browsed?" Jack started to look suspicious, "You browsed at the games store?"

"Yes." Zach said, seeing the flaw in the lie he was telling.

"Dude, you don't browse at the game store. I remember the last time we went you wanted to buy everything in the store! Hey, you hiding something from me?"

Zach's heart rate doubled. His eyes grew wide and he stammered, hoping Jack wouldn't catch on.

"N-no!"

Jack's suspicion grew, "Zach if you brought the new game you would tell me, right?"

Zach nodded, "Of course. I know you would be disappointed if I didn't invite you to play it with me."

"Are you lying?"

"No!"

Jack pointed at him, "You better not be."

As Jack walked off, Zach breathed a sigh of relief. Jack may be a little suspicious, but about the wrong thing.

He resolved to buy a new game so he could share it with Jack this weekend.

Dr. Saroyan walked past and looked up at him. He gave her a weak smile, but she looked down at the folder she was holding before she could see it.

Zach shrugged and went back to the tibia.

.oO00Oo.

When she was a little further away from the platform, Cam looked back at Zach, but he had gone back to the bones he was looking over. She made her gaze linger a while, and then turned around.

She almost ran into Seeley.

"Hey you," he smiled.

"Hey Seeley," she smiled back.

"You okay? I haven't seen you in a while."

Cam nodded, "You're right. But I'm okay."

Seeley smiled charmingly, patted her shoulder, "You know what? This weekend, it's just me and you. We can go to that ice hockey game and then watch a movie or something. Bones is going to that conference thing in New Hampshire so I'm totally free."

Her eyes went to the side, "Uh..."

He pouted a little, "You're busy?"

"Yeah."

"Doing what?"

Cam's heart raced a little. She needed a lie, fast.

"Um... a girlfriend of mine is coming into town and I made reservations at this restaurant..."

"You can't get out of it?"

Yes, "Nope. Sorry Seel."

"Hmm, okay. How about next weekend?"

Cam smiled, "Sure, Seeley."

"Great," he smiled again, "Now I will just have to find something to do with myself this weekend."

"Good luck."

He looked back at her, "How about tonight? Friday night! We could go somewhere."

"Sorry." she scrunched up her face, "Busy."

He squinted at her, leaned in closer, "You've been awful busy in the last week. What have you been doing?"

Her heart started skipping again, "Uh..."

"You're not hiding something, are you?"

"No!"

If she answered a little quickly, Seeley didn't pick up on it, "Okay. But you know you should have a little fun, Cam. All work and no play makes Cammy elbow deep in other people's guts."

She nodded, smiling, "I'll keep that in mind."

"Good. See ya."

"Bye Seeley."

As she watched Seeley walk away, she puffed out a breath. She didn't like lying (who did?) but the lie was a bit necessary. She had to remember to meet up with him next weekend and go wherever he wanted to with him. She owed him.

But tonight she had better things to do.

.oO00Oo.

"Orgasm."

Zach looked at the tiles as Dr. Saroyan laid them out on the Scrabble board and couldn't help the heat that came to his face. He looked up as her triumphant smile changed to a challenging frown.

"What? The only other word I could spell was ogre!"

"You could also have spelled smog, same, gram, rag, age, rage...but orgasm would allot you the most points from all those options," Zach finally smiled as he saw how Dr. Saroyan's face fall at hearing the word options she had. He was way in the lead, she only beating him once in their week-long Scrabble tournament. Recording her points (which still put her nowhere near the lead) he laid out his tiles to spell a word.

"Skeptics."

"Hmm. Nice one," she smiled as she dug in the bag for more tiles. Gaining a blank tile, she almost did a happy dance. Blank tiles were crucial in these games. Zach was way better than her at Scrabble, she knew that, so gaining a little extra help was more than welcome.

She looked over at him as he recorded his points, her eyes focusing on the way he wrote. Surprisingly, Cam didn't get to see Zach write much in the lab. He was mostly typing on a computer. The same could probably be said about her. She leaned in to watch him draw a figure eight when he looked up.

"Ten thousand, six hundred and fourteen," he told her.

"Huh?"

"Those are your points so far. That was what you were looking for?"

Cam nodded, "Yeah, sure."

"Do you have a word yet?" he asked.

She hadn't even finished choosing her letters yet. Digging in the bag, she picked up three letter tiles and put them with the rest.

"Hmm...I'm gonna go with...Asking!" she grinned as she put down the letters, dragging up her blouse as it fell off her shoulder, "Beat that, nerd!"

Zach scrutinized the board for a minute, took up his tiles and laid them down.

"Primary. And because I placed the P there, I get points for turning ink to pink, then that is a triple letter score..."

Cam's lower jaw hit the floor. She watched the total annihilation of her efforts in stunned silence. Zach sent her an apologetic smile as he noted the points they both got. Cam gave a defeated sigh.

"Okay. That's it. I'm officially done."

She got up off her living room floor and headed for the kitchen. While there, she yanked open the refrigerator and took out a carton of orange juice. She got a glass and poured some in.

"Dr. Saroyan?"

She spun around and looked at Zach framed in the doorway.

"Yeah?"

"Do you want to start over? Maybe I've been winning by too large a margin."

She shook her head, "No, Zach! You're winning because you're way better at Scrabble than I am. Plus, remember we already started over on Monday, because the last game I kept cheating? If we start over again, this tournament will never end."

He nodded, "Does that mean that you're coming back to the game?"

"Yeah," she smiled, "You want something to drink?"

"I'm fine."

Cam kept trying to smile to see if Zach would smile too, but it hardly ever worked. Despite the fact that they had been playing their Scrabble tournament for three weeks now, she could guess he was still a little uncomfortable being in his boss' house. He wouldn't call her Cam, not that she asked him to or anything. He didn't relax that much. But maybe she was putting too much emphasis on that. She should be trying to beat his nerdy ass at Scrabble.

"Come on," she said, putting the glass down and ushering him out of the kitchen, "Let's go back to you beating me."

....................................................

"No!"

"There are no rules against doing that, Dr. Saroyan. I can spell the word Zenith in the uppermost corner!"

"No Zach I won't have it! Do you know Z is the letter with the most points?"

"Yes!"

"But Zach, the triple word space is in that corner!"

"I know!"

"But Zach please! You can't do that! PUL-EEEZE!"

"There is nothing in the rules that says I can't do it!"

She was half laughing, half moaning, but Zach could see it was all in good fun. The shoulder of the white blouse she was wearing was down again, and he wanted to fix it for her, or at least call her attention to it. But this was slightly more intriguing than Dr. Saroyan's shoulder. He was already 50 points ahead of her in the game, about 300 in the tournament. And as there were no tiles left on the bag, they would have to pack it up after her turn.

"Come on! Have a little pity! You're already gonna win! Just save me some dignity!"

He thought about it, conceded and then put the word in another place, where the Z was given a triple letter score anyway.

"Oh Zach! I could kiss you!"

Zach looked up, shocked, "Why? Why would you kiss me?"

She looked a little shocked too, her eyes widening as if she had just realized what she said.

"Uh, it's an expression, Zach. "

He bowed his head, "Oh."

"Uh..my last word is...Jelly. Yes that was the best I could do. Don't laugh."

"I wouldn't laugh, Dr. Saroyan," he told her as he added the score for the game to their tournament scores.

He didn't look up, so he missed the look of pity that accompanied Dr. Saroyan's sigh.

"So tomorrow? All day." she said to him when he looked up.

"Yes. And then it will be over."

"And no more start overs, okay?" she eyed him playfully, "Not even if I cheat."

"We will be repeating a vicious cycle if we start over, as you said," he told her.

She got up off the floor and smiled down at him, "It was fun, though. We should maybe do it again...only no time soon."

Zach got up off the floor and helped her pack up the game.

"Jack thought I went to the game store."

"What?"

Zach looked at Dr. Saroyan, "I told him that instead of telling him where I was last night."

There was a moment of silence before she talked.

"Seeley thinks I'm going out with a friend tomorrow," she shifted her gaze.

"Why did we lie?" Zach couldn't explain the motive behind his own action and that he found anomalous.

She shrugged, "Staying up all night to play Scrabble is kind of nerdy."

"Okay." maybe that described her motive, but not his.

When the game was packed up, she ushered him to the door to let him out.

"See you tomorrow, Zacharooni."

He gave a little wave, "Bye."

..............................................

Cam went to her room and flopped down on her bed, bouncing thrice before she was totally still. Grabbing a pillow, she hugged it to her chest.

Who knew Zach was so much fun?

She smiled when she remembered the smile he gave her when he listed out all the anagrams he could name from the word orgasm... plus an E. It made her want to pinch his cheek it was so cute. How many times over the last three weeks had she just wanted to reach out and pinch his cheek?

She made it a point of duty to try to make him smile while he was here.

She was enjoying this a little bit too much. It was just Scrabble for heaven's sake! With somebody who was clearly a lot better at it than she was. She should be pissed, like she was at her sister for being better at it too. But it was more fun with Zach than with her sister.

Why did she lie to Seeley what she was doing tomorrow night?

She didn't know. Nobody would be very freaked to know that they were in the middle of a Scrabble tournament. More likely, they would be shocked they weren't told sooner, inquiring about how it was going and who was winning and asking if they could join in on the next tournament. But...she still honoured their unspoken vow not to tell.

Dismissing her worries, she got up to brush her teeth before bed.

................................................

Zach walked up the mansion's long driveway, staring at the gravel, his mind on other things. Mostly it was on the Scrabble game he had just played, the points he acquired, and the margin of lead he had. Zach knew he could be overly competitive, and though he tried to hide that from Dr. Saroyan, he couldn't help but incorporate strategies in his game that would completely undermine her's. But she didn't pout. For he most part. She merely smiled and continued playing.

She had a nice smile. And for some reason, it seemed to be contagious. He tried his best not to reciprocate when she smiled at him, just to test how strong the urge was to smile back. It was really difficult, and a few times he found himself smiling unconsciously.

Part of him was glad that the Scrabble tournament was over tomorrow. But another part was going to miss it. Thankfully, Dr. Saroyan said that she would be happy to play another tournament, just not in the near future. That was understandable. They had been playing the last one for three weeks, though it was supposed to be one. The game would become boring if they were to play it every day.

The last game was to start at ten tomorrow, and end whenever they wanted it to. Zach realised he could hardly wait.

"Zach?"

Zach looked up at the sound of his name and saw Jack standing near the garage. He had his hands folded and he looked somewhere between upset and concerned.

"Hi," was all Zach could say.

"Dude, it's twelve o'clock! Where have you been?"

You know the good thing about ff dot net's change in format? The Review button is bigger! So you can't miss it! Come on, baby, send me a review!