sum: a world in which the gallagher girls realize that their lives don't really revolve around blackthorne boys. / for sillykiwi's friendship challenge.

m'kay, so this is something that i discovered a long time ago, that i wrote in around december, and my writing style seems to have changed dramatically but i hope that you like this all the same, :)

please review?

.

"Have you seen that new kid?"

"The one with the bad haircut and the chipped nails—" Macey sniggers, before seeing the crestfallen look on Liz's face. "Oh, god, Liz. Do you like him?"

Cammie slides into the seat next to Liz, saying, "Who? Liz, I thought you liked Jonas," between bites of a jelly donut, so that her speech comes out incomprehensible.

"No," she mutters, looking down. "Jonas just chea—"

There's silence, because Liz bursts into tears, and Cammie tries to comfort her, and Bex looks like she's going to go and kill Jonas, and Macey comments on how Liz's mascara is running, but everybody knows how hard she's trying to keep up the facade. "Speak of the devil," Macey mutters, shooting daggers out of her eyes at the entrance of three Blackthorne Boys. "—and he appears."

.

It's barely light outside.

At four a.m. in the morning, in the middle of Nebraska, Cammie expected to be able to stay in bed for at least a few more hours, until she would have to help her grandparents with the farm. Knock-knock-knock, the door sounded. Cammie swore underneath her breath. Bex came bursting through the door, Liz on one side, looking quite flustered and over-tanned, still toothpick-body shape as ever, and Macey flanked on the other, a mask of nonchalance trying to hide her excited grin.

"Welcome to the war, Cammie," Bex said, smirking, as she cocked her gun. "This is only the beginning."

Three hours later, Cammie finds herself on the edge of a building, pallid in colour, her feet dangling off the rooftop. A garden behind her, along with a perfect replica of the Charybdis stood, the strong smell of mint overpowering her nostrils. If this had been a normal day, she would have enjoyed the sights and scenes with her three best friends. Then again, there was a knife's blade across her throat.

And Macey, Liz, and Bex were thrust in air-tight sacks and forced into one of the Circle's cells, knocked unconscious.

.

They're on the run now; the run from what?

The Gallagher Girls aren't really sure; Mick, Eva, & Tina joined them along the way, weapons in bags and combat leather knee-high boots. Breathless, they stop, hands on knees, as they look around the corner of the street, seeing that it's empty. In the catacombs of France. "What are we doing here?" Tina asks, her voice high, and echoing across the cavernous walls. Within a moment, the seven of them are surrounded. They can hear the evident signs, footsteps and all that; nonetheless, they hold their flashlights up high, backs to each other, as they mutter prayers.

And, then the fight begins.

If the whole story has to be truthful, then it's true that Liz started the fight, ducking underneath a burly-looking man, and punching him in the nose, before she's put into an immediate headlock. Macey comes out of the dark, and quickly slaps a Nicotine Patch onto the man, who falls unconscious.

Mick and Bex are in the middle of jumping over rolling bins, and together, pick up one of the metal structures, throwing them back up the staircase in which they meet the surprised faces of two women, who run. Cammie's watching, from the sidelines, and as soon as Tina roundhouse kicks the man, and performs a perfect hip toss, drags the man's body away; after all, they wouldn't want the COC to figure about the loss, now would they?

Eva helps in the concealing, and they're all done. There's blood and scars still needed to form over the open gashes, but within fifteen minutes, the Gallagher Girls have hitched a ride on the back of a caravan, and jump off into a pile of hay, after an unexpected bump in the round.

And then, they're laughing.

They're laughing just so hard, tears running down their faces because deep down, they've all missed the exhiliration, the feeling of ecstacy when there's somebody that you can always rely on to catch your back who understands you more than some of the more unstable relationships in the field — they talk about their own relationships, for a while, and each of them feel more sorry for the next.

Of course, a relationship with a civilian seems to be one of the hardest, but a relationship with a spy? It means nothing if you're safe, if they're not safe too.

There's a chill in the air and the everlasting feel that they could be killed at any moment, what with an entire terrorist group on their feet, if they had gotten out of the water, or even noticed that some of their less important prisoners had escaped, but the night's not over yet. They're toasting burnt sticks by a fireplace, which doesn't even leave a trail of smoke because it's just too dangerous for the signal, and they're laughing — feeling better than they have in a really long time, and suddenly the bruises and the bumps and the pain just goes away. They're having too much fun.

.

And, no matter what the people say, the Gallagher Girls are more than friends: they're sisters. Even though they're spies-in-training, spy girls, their lives don't really revolve around Blackthorne Boys, at least not all the time.

No matter what the people say, the Gallagher Girls don't really need boys.

(After all, aren't their lives already messed up enough?)