Twelve Days of Zammie

one

"On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me…"

She knows that there's something wrong with him.

It's quite obvious to her—Zach just wasn't his normal self. Sometimes he sneaks out in the middle of the night, sometimes he doesn't pay attention to their conversations, sometimes he'll choose a guy's night over a 'Zach&Cammie' night, and he was always, always anxious.

She thought coming here to Paris would change that; wasn't their mission enough to replace his strangeness? Well, no. instead, he just started showing it in different forms—walk the streets at night, lounge in the hotel lobby, work 'overtime' at his HQ here, and sometimes he even slept on the other bed and not with Cammie. And of course, he was still anxious.

Cammie hated it.

She didn't want to lose him.

That's why she gave no second thought when he asked her for a date a couple of days after they had completed their mission. Well, that, and the fact that it's Paris.

I'll just have to try and keep him, Cammie thought to herself, sadly, as she stood in front of the bathroom mirror. She plugged in the curling iron and spread out her makeup. She then stripped her clothes off quickly and threw on her planned outfit. It was a grey, long sleeved shirt paired with light pink skinny jeans and a scarf in the same shade. Her earrings and bracelet also matched the hue as well as her bag. She ended up slipping into grey heels, and then returned to the mirror.

Cammie figured she would just have to steal Liz's natural look. She grabbed the blush and started applying it, using the 'natural' method Macey taught and strongly advised her to use. Then, she coated the corners of her eyelashes with mascara and decided to go for eyeliner. Guessing eye shadow would overdo it, Cammie silently debated between the light pink lip gloss she just purchased or her trusty peach coating. In the end, the new triumphed over the old.

Carefully curling her dishwater blonde hair, she heard Zach barging into their hotel room.

"Hey babe, where you at?"

"In the bathroom."

"Are you decent?"

She finished her last batch of hair and turned off the iron, cleaning up her mess. Sighing, she responded, "I am now."

Nevertheless, Zach still poked his head in before entering the bathroom fully. "You r-ready?"

She scrunched her eyebrows together and walked past him, sitting on her bed. "Why the stutter?"

"No reason," he replied, voice raising an octave or two.

Cammie grabbed her room key from the drawer and slipped it into her wallet before brushing past Zach yet again. As she left the room, she knew that their date would probably be the same old same old.

Here comes his weird behavior again.

"Geez Cams, why the rush?"

She just returned a cold stare as she closed the elevator doors and pressed the button '1'.

On their four story flight down, the 'lovebirds' retreated to opposite corners of the elevator. Zach was fumbling around with something in his pocket—lint, Cammie assumed—and played with his jacket zipper. Cammie just crossed her arms and tried to look at anywhere but him.

Surprisingly, they made it to the restaurant without killing each other—well, Cammie was the problem but she didn't unleash her wrath. They still were covered in that awkward atmosphere, that weird vibe lingering between them. Fumbling through ordering and accepting drinks, they didn't know what to do.

Of course, this called for an intense stare off—and it wasn't that passionate intense most long for.

Zach played with his straw, not making eye contact with Cammie, as he braved speaking, "So, how are you?"

"Wouldn't you like to know," Cammie muttered under her breath.

"Hmm? I didn't catch that."

"Oh, sorry. I said 'I'm doing well.' How about you?"

"Fine, glad that mission is over with—to much stress."

She couldn't resist, "Oh, but didn't your nightly walks calm you down?"

His eyes widened and he seemed taken aback. For a moment in time, Zachary Goode was confused. His eyes screamed 'caught' with a slab of 'sloppy'. But that moment in time only lasted a second—he was his father's son, after all.

"How did your mission go, then?" Cammie deadpanned, moving on from putting him on the spot.

"Pretty good, actually. But there was only one thing missing."

Please don't use a cheesy line.

"You."

Damn it.

Cammie couldn't mask her annoyance any longer and rolled her eyes at his comment, then returned to her cold stare—now, a hundred times colder.

"What?"

"I didn't think you would stoop so low to that level of cheesiness."

He chuckled, but she gave no hint of emotion.

And she guessed that's when he caved.

"Alright, what's really going on?"

"You're my problem, Zachary," she snapped.

He sighed, like he knew this day was bound to come.

She raised an eyebrow. "Oh, so you don't care then? You wouldn't care if I just stood up and walked out of this restaurant? You wouldn't care if I walked away from you?"

He didn't say a word.

She forced a laugh, blinking back the tears. "I knew it. I see exactly how this is then. Goodbye, Zachary Goode, it was nice knowing you—well, up until the last month anyway."

She abruptly stood up and headed to the door, thankful that they were right in front because she didn't know how to handle the walk of shame she didn't even want to walk in the first place.

"Wait Cammie," Zach whispered.

She turned on her heel and sat back down. "Oh thank god, that would've been embarrassing."

He smiled to himself and made eye contact with her. "Cammie, if you were feeling neglected, why didn't you just tell me? I'm not trying to blame it on you, because I know I've been a jerk lately, but you could've at least said something rather than bottle it up."

"I didn't want you to leave me too," she whimpered, holding back tears.

"Gallagher Girl, I'm never, ever going to leave you."

"But I didn't know that."

"But you know now. And now, you know that I love you way too much to just walk away. I'm never going to start a war with you, and you know why? Because I will always love and want you," he reassured her.

She laughed. "You practically just quoted Wrecking Ball."

He let out a laugh as well. "Better than me singing it to you, right?"

"Well, now that you asked…"

He was about to reply with something witty when the food was placed in front of them. They thanked the waitress and dug in.

"You know, now it's my dream for you to sing to me," she teased in between bites.

"Maybe you'll get your wish." He winked.

So they spent their meal talking to each other like old times, of course with the constant teasing thrown in. It wasn't until desert arrived that Cammie noticed that Zach was till fumbling around, nervously picking at something in his pocket.

She groaned, ready to unleash the claws. Zach looked up at her, clearly wondering what was wrong. She read his expression, bore deep into his innocent-looking eyes, and decided not to call him out on it—he was paying attention to her again, after all.

She guessed her obliviousness was the reason she was so shocked when he reached over and locked hands with hers.

"Cammie, when I first met you, I saw a look in your eye that meant determination and success. When we first met in that elevator, I just had this sort of feeling that everything was about to change. I turned out to be right for once and thank god for that. You've been brave from the start and with every step we took on our multiple journeys, your courage never faltered. I like to think that when you ran away, that was when I realized I needed you and that you complete me. So when you came back, and found your way back to your true self, that was when I knew that we were meant to be.

Before I met you, I was a lonely soul, but now, you've given me the strength to feel again. Cammie, that means the world to me, that somebody actually cared enough to do that and that somebody actually could do it. My heart was a desert until you came and watered it with you love. Since then, we've been pulling the weeds and enjoying the blossoms. The gift you've given me is amazing, and I can't be anymore thankful for it. You've taught me to dream bigger again and you made me believe in myself again, inspiring me on levels I couldn't even imagine."

Cammie was in tears and her heart was racing. A waiter came and placed a bowl covered up in front of Cammie, and she wanted to slap him for interrupting their moment. But then they locked eyes, and she saw it was Grant, and he winked at her, patting Zach on the back as he left. Zach gestured to the cover up and signaled her to open it.

Inside, there was a giant heart cookie—chocolate, of course—with M&Ms scattered on it. She traced her fingers over the scattered pieces, smiling as she saw the words 'I LOVE YOU'. She turned to Zach to thank him, but he had other ideas.

Zach pulled out a velvet box from the pocket he was fumbling with all night and got down on one knee. Cammie's eyes widened as her mind—but mainly her heart—processed this, having that Ohmygodthisisreallyhappening feeling rushing through her system.

"It's for these reasons," he continued, voice stammering, "that I can't imagine growing old with anyone else, nor do I want to. I know you're the only one I want to share the rest of my life with. The story of our love is only beginning. Let's write our own happy ending. Cammie, when I met you, I knew I'd met my match. It was only a matter of time until we arrived here. How it turns out is all in your hands. Gallagher Girl," Zach choked out, tears welling up in his eyes, "will you marry me?"

She rubbed her eyes to clear her blurry vision, causing her mascara to run but in all honesty, she didn't care. "Yes, a thousand times yes! Oh god, there's nothing more that I want to do than spend the rest of my life with you Zach."

He scooped her up and started planting kisses on her, and she didn't mind the slightest that she wasn't a chameleon in this moment. Meanwhile the whole restaurant stood up and cheered, Grant hollering the most saying, "That's my ship!"

"I love you so much, my beautiful fiancé," he whispered in her ear.

"I love the sound of that."

"Of what?"

"You calling me your fiancé," she giggled.

He smiled and kissed her one last time, the rest of the world fading away from them.

She knew there was something wrong with him.

She just didn't know that it was her that made him that weak—a good weak, obviously.

She loved it.

"…the one and only diamond ring."

a/n: I'm back! So this is this year's Christmas special: Twelve Days of Zammie. I hope you liked the first chapter; I'm a little rusty after not writing for so long. I postponed publishing this until today because it's my one year Fan Fiction anniversary! What better way to celebrate?

So, follow/fav/review, do whatcha wanna do {you may just make my day c;}.

Side note: It's hard to make wedding proposals. Props to you, men of the world.

Feel free to see my profile, other stories, and poll (:

xxxlizxxx