Alright. I know it's January 4th. And, the holidays are over. But, I spent all break long on this idea and felt if I didn't publish it after typing it, hating it, typing it, losing it, then typing it up again from scratch - it would be a total waste of time. So, for those who are still okay with reading about some Christmas cheer, this is a really long one shot (split in three) I like to call,
The Twenty Sixth. I hope you enjoy, and tell me what you think!
Disclaimer: If I was Ally Carter, I imagine perfecting this wouldn't have taken so long.
She's joking.
She's gotta be joking.
"Come again?"
"You heard me, kiddo."
And, she was right.
I had heard every word.
But, still I steadied myself against the enormous black desk in the center of the spacious room and searched my mother's gorgeous eyes. For some sort of sign. Some sort of clue that she was lying.
That she didn't invite a certain boy to spend a certain holiday with a certain family.
That certain family being ours. The certain holiday being the first Christmas, the first anything I had spent with my grandparents since the Circle. And, the certain boy being…
Well…
"What's the matter, Gallagher Girl?"
Zachary Goode appeared in my office doorway, leaned on the doorpost and smirked.
"Don't wanna have me for the holidays?"
I didn't answer that.
Because, one, I didn't really want to give him the satisfaction of telling him I'd be fine with having him anywhere I was at anytime of any day just so I could look at him.
And, two, I didn't want to be rude and say,
"Absolutely not!"
Well, so much for that.
"Cameron."
Despite the fact that I was no longer her student and she was no longer my headmistress, my mother shot my name out just the same. Like I was totally and completely under her control. Like I was seriously out of line. And, if I didn't reassemble myself back into that line, bad things would happen.
Reallybad things.
"Zach, can you give us a second?"
My mom turned to the most watched, the most potentially threatening CIA newbie and smiled to him as he totally wasn't potentially threatening at all. Which trust me, he was. In a variety of ways. But, really, it didn't matter how threatening or lethal he was or not. He was no match for Rachel Morgan.
And, Zach himself knew that.
So, he gave a nod, flashed me a smirk then disappeared down the forty second hall of Langley central headquarters. Leaving me alone. With my mom.
I could almost see the white washed walls morph into ivy covered stone with my mother's closing of the sliding glass door. And, as I collapsed into the standard office chair behind my desk, it just as quickly transformed into a familiar leather couch that belonged to an office much more important than my own, and suddenly I wasn't in my office smack dab in the middle of the Langley "newbie division"( that, note, wasn't even located anywhere close the super cool interrogation and research headquarters below the mall in DC).
I suddenly was back at Gallagher. In my mom's office. Suddenly, I was home.
"Alright. What's going on, Kiddo?"
"What do you mean 'what's going on'?'" I muttered as my mom exchanged her iron strong hands for ones of silk, and reached out to stroke my hair. Just like she always had.
"With you and Mr. Goode,"
Her voice was almost giddy when she said that. Her perfect legs swung over the edge of my desk as she hopped onto the corner, more than enthusiastic to help me with my "boy troubles" for a couple of understandable reasons .
1) Rachel Morgan was always up to the challenge. And, even though my mom has scaled buildings, escaped terrorists, and killed three men four times her size with nothing but a ball of yarn and some pocket lint (or that's what the rumor was freshman year), she always seemed to find chatting about my thoroughly confusing and pathetic love life far more exciting and worthwhile. After all, "motherhood is the greatest, most challenging mission there is, kiddo."
2) Due to the fact that I spent 10 months of the last year on the run from one of the most lethal terrorist organizations in the world, , it was frankly a miracle I was alive. And, as my mother, Rachel Morgan was bound and determined to treasure every little piece of life that was given back to me. Includingridiculous "boy troubles" caused by the son of the ring leader of the said most lethal terrorist organization in the world. No matter how completely insane that might sound.
The thing is, I had absolutely nothing to share. Nothing but the fact that he deliberately took the last doughnut in the lounge this morning and ate it in front of me though I'm pretty sure everyone on the forty second floor could hear my stomach growling.
But, that was about all our relationship came to anymore.
"Nothing," I mumbled still a little bitter about missing breakfast, "Nothing at all."
And, I meant it. So, I decided to move on to the more pressing crisis at hand.
"Mom, he can't come with us. He's going to – "
There were a dozen ways I could have finished that sentence,
but for some reason I couldn't find the words.
I felt two inches tall having to be lectured by my mother behind closed doors.
I felt five years old for fighting for a cause when I couldn't even put my finger on a defense.
I didn't feel like the newest, most promising CIA agent I was supposed to be.
I didn't feel nineteen.
I didn't feel grown up.
And, I had been trying so hard to grow up lately.
To move on from the past.
"Cammie,"
My mom must have seen my face, she must have read my eyes, and I must have lost my touch to hide it all because her voice was changed. And, suddenly the conversation held a lot more weight than my continual confusion over Zachary Goode.
"Cammie, look at me." And, when I did she smiled, "Why do you want to go to Nebraska?"
I wanted to say a million different things right then. I wanted to tell her how much I missed being at the ranch. How much it reminded me of Dad. How familiar it really was. And, how much I longed for something familiar. Something that would make me feel like me again. Because, too much darkness can make you lose your way. And, in the past year, I had experienced more than my fair share of darkness.
But, something gave me the feeling that she already knew all of that.
So, I simply said the first thing that came to mine.
"Because, it's…home."
Mom gave a smile then that told me I had given exactly the answer she had been expecting.
And, I wasn't surprised. She wasn't a CIA legend for nothing.
And, she wasn't my mother for nothing either.
It was her job to know me, inside and out.
And, it was also her job to correct me when I was off course.
Which is why she said exactly what I kinda sorta didn't want to hear:
"Sweetie, you've been through a lot. But, the only person who's possibly been through more,"
"is him." Him, referring to Zach, "He deserves "home" just as much as you do."
"But-"
"Cammie, he's coming to us with us to Nebraska. He's going to meet your grandparents. He's going to spend Christmas with us. And, I don't want to hear any more about it."
"But-"
"Cameron Ann – " she spoke with a voice that sounded as if I dared to say 'but' one more time, she'd show me how exactly she tackled down those three men with only her pocket liter – rumor or no rumor.
So, I did what any daughter would, and shut the heck up.
"Sweetie," my mom broke the silence once more, reaching to stroke my hair and cupping my face, reading every thought in my head like an open book not even I could understand. But, of course, she had no problem with the task.
"I think you need this vacation more than anyone else. But, Nebraska's not going to fix everything."
"Then what will?"
I didn't remember telling my mouth to say that. I didn't remember allowing such a question to be set free. But, I guess I was simply desperate. Desperate to forget the darkness that had cursed much our lives for the last year. And, well, desperate times call for desperate insecurity-revealing measures.
My mother shrugged like a person who had absolutely no idea.
But, I'd be a fool to believe her gesture was anything but part of a cover.
"I think your cure is closer than you think,"
I know. I didn't get it either. Not for a long time.
But, at that point I really didn't have much time to think about it, because as soon as my mother gave me a kiss on the head, and floated out of the room with no more to the argument but a "get packed" and "see you in the morning", Zachary Goode appeared out of nowhere and stepped through the sliding glass door way.
"You're not really angry about this, are you, Gallagher Girl?" He said waltzing into the room, overconfident smirk and all. And, if I wasn't "really angry" before, I definitely was then. All he had to do to make me angry was walk into the room. That might have been an over exaggeration on any other day. But, right then, it was only the truth. (Like I said, still bitter about the doughnut).
"Of course I am." I snapped.
Zach simply disregarded my dramatic attitude and paced around the office examining it as if he hadn't seen Langely's attempt to make up for the newbie's tendency to be dumped with mounds and mounds of paper work as opposed to overnight missions to Belize ( or somethingthe least bit more exciting than mission inquires and regional statistic reports). He almost admired the space as if he didn't have one exactly like it three doors down and across the hall.
"I don't mean to ruin your vacation,"
He shrugged and said that as if he totally didn't believe that he was doing anything to hinder my Christmas break whatsoever. Which he sowas.
"But, it does give us a good chance to get…reacquainted"
At that point, I was pretty sure he was kidding, but I couldn't help but throwing up a little.
Not that the thought of being "reacquainted" with anyone who looked like Zachary Goode was all that unpleasant. I guess it was just the whole attitude, and his recent Grinch-that-stole-Christmas-ness, that was making me hate him more than usual today.
And, you know what those motivational posters always say.
It's what's on the inside that counts.
"You'd like that wouldn't you, Gallagher Girl?"
But, let it be known for the first time in history, I wasn't mentally recording every word that came out of Zach's mouth so I could review the meaning with Macey later. I was actually not paying attention at all.
Well, not totally at least.
I was actually busy thinking of a way to get around all of this. I was thinking of a way that would save my trip back to the last piece of home I really had. A plan that would satisfy my mother's need to bring Zach along as well as my need to get rid of him as soon as possible.
And, right as Zach made himself comfortable on the white leather sitting area couch (courtesy of Langley's sympathy for its paper work pack mules) , I finally had it. A brilliant plan that might perhaps compromise the Grinch that was plotting to steal the Morgan family Christmas.
Okay, so maybe that is another overstatement…
But, I still stood up in a sort of "eureka-slash-light-bulb" moment and said,
"The twenty sixth."
"Excuse me?" Zach lifted his head off the arm of the sofa and cocked an eye brow.
"It's the day after the twenty fifth."
"Yeah I got that part, Gallagher Girl, but – "
"You have to be out by the twenty sixth."
Right then I remember looking into Zach's dark green eyes and watching him stop, and blink.
And for a second I wondered if the boy with emotions of steel and unwavering confidence
was actually hurt. But, I shrugged it off as impossible, and continued.
"And, there are rules," I took a breath as if to triple check if this whole plan really would work, that maybe I could survive the holiday and enjoy Nebraska even if Zach had to be there,
"You can't talk about anything…"
"Anything." Zach lifted his eyebrows almost in question of my sanity.
"Anything."
"So, you want me to be a mime…"
"Zach! You know what I mean. Don't talk about-" The past, I thought. The darkness that is in no way or fashion going to reach the ears and eyes of my grandparents as it had reached us. Not if I could help it.
But, Zach interrupted me before I could finish, waving away the matter as if it were as light as a feather rather than heavier than the air between us had been since we came home alive.
"Yeah, yeah. Alright. Any more demands?"
That's when I froze. And, choked.
Before I go on, let me explain something.
Tragedy doesn't last forever. Or rather, it can't last forever.
There has to be a time where you grow up, move on, heal.
If I had learned anything from the past, the Circle, my dad's death,
it was that fact. And, trust me, I had given my all into trying to grow up.
trying to forget, trying to heal, trying to move on.
And, when it came to Zach, practically the epitome of the darkness we endured starting my junior year, my efforts were no different. I just wanted to move on.
So, if you can understand any of that, maybe you'll understand why I said,
"You're just someone I work with…" It was harder to his face than to myself I discovered, because suddenly, I was stuttering. (And, Gallagher does notslack on its teaching of speech and language techniques. Therefore, my education should have opted for a different result).
"There's nothing…" curse those stupid green eyes, "nothing going on-."
"When we're there. We're just friends." I said finishing strong.
With that, Zach didn't smile. He didn't smirk. He didn't make fun of my sudden struggle with speaking.
He just stood, slowly walked to me, and said
"Where I come from, Gallagher Girl, we call that a cover"
As if I didn't know. As if I wasn't an official CIA agent too.
"Can you handle that?"I asked, doing my best to regain some sort of dignity. But, as always, in a matter of seconds, with nothing but a perk of his eye brows and an ever cryptic tone,
Zach Goode sent it all tumbling down.
"Can you?"