the clock just stopped
Summary: He was waiting for a time to come when they weren't running out of time. "I wanted the time to be just right, but I've realized that right now is the best time. While things are still certain." Because the future may be unclear, but all he knows is that he wants to spend it with her. —Zach/Cammie
16.
They're sixteen when they meet. The initial spark is classic storyline stuff: Boy meets girl. Girl meets boy. They fall in love.
Right?
And it should have been that easy, from there on out, except it wasn't. He had secrets, she was still harboring a hopeful heart regarding her father's disappearance, and oh, had he mentioned his mother? All of them were complications.
Fairytales, Zach snorted. There was a reason spies didn't read them.
17.
Seventeen is when he starts considering his future.
Seventeen is when he offers that they run away, together.
Seventeen is when she turns him down.
18.
Eighteen is when they run into each other again. It's a little bump in the streets, nothing, really, except he knows her. He knows those eyes, those features, and no amount of disguise will ever erase them from his mind.
"Sorry," she mumbles, eyes darting away, but he's caught her. His hand grabs hers, holds it there.
"Cammie. What—why are you here?" She bites her lip and looks at him, eyes wide. And in those eyes he sees something else, too. She's scared, she's unsure, and he wants to pull her behind him and guard her from the rest of the world, except she won't let him. She never has.
"Zach. I need to go," she whispers, wriggling out of his grip. "I can't talk. Not now." And he lets her slip between his fingers again, because he's supposed to be the good guy and he's supposed to let her go.
Except it's a lot harder than he thought it'd be.
23.
Twenty-three is when they come back into each other's lives, for real. Chance has them working at the same branch at the same time, and they get assigned a mission together. She looks much the same as always, thin, mid-height (shorter than he is, at least), brown hair. And Zach hasn't really changed much, either.
When they meet in the briefing room, he smirks. "Gallagher Girl. It's been a while, hasn't it?"
25.
Twenty-five is when he starts seeing possibilities for them, maybe a future. How many other people get so many near misses in their lives, anyways? To be reunited with an old flame is a blessing, really, and he'd be a fool not to see it as more than random chance. Maybe the universe is telling them that they really can be together.
Still, the clock keeps ticking. Every mission, every deadline brings them closer to whatever the future holds in store. And it seems that the older they get, the less time they have. 25, 26, 27, 28. Their ages escalate. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. His internal doomsday clock chimes.
They start spending time together outside of work, during the tender hours of dusk. They go to parks and museums, trying to soak in as much as they can of the nightlife. They try and memorize everything about their city, their country, in case one day they wake up and find that they're now hostages in another country. In case one day they don't wake up at all.
26.
Twenty-six is when he buys the ring.
It's more of an impulsive thing; God knows he wasn't thinking when he pointed at it and wrote the check and walked out the door with it, but the weight of its velvet box becomes a close companion for the rest of the year. It just sits there, in his pocket, biding its time.
27.
He was waiting for a time to come when they weren't running out of time. But the longer he waited, the busier their lives seemed to get.
So, one day he makes a decision and sticks to it, and when she stops by his apartment that evening, he's ready.
"So, I was thinking…Italian food, tonight?" she asks, eyes sparkling in the starlight. He grabs his coat from beside the doorway and pulls it on, stepping outside, his breath coming out in little puffs.
"Actually, tonight I was thinking more along the lines of French food," he says, and takes her hand. "It's kind of funny, actually, because I have reservations already at a nice place in town."
Her fingers are cold in his, but her laughter warms him right up to the core. "What are you up to, Zach?" she wonders. He turns, smirking at her, giving her a purposely ambiguous answer.
"You'll see."
They get a nice little seat in the corner, away from questioning eyes, and listen to the wine glasses clink as they order. The candlelight flickers, casting shadows on the wall, but if there's one thing Zach is sure about tonight, it's that his resolve is unwavering.
They talk and they eat. She dabs at the corner of her mouth gently with a napkin before turning her eyes on him.
"Okay. Now you have to tell me." His fingers, underneath the table, reach into his pocket, and he keeps her talking as he readies himself.
"Cammie, do you ever think about what you want, aside from all of this?" She blinks at his question.
"Of course I do."
"And?"
"And, well, I want to see the world. I want to fall in love." Her eyes meet his for that statement, and they speak volumes. He feels reassured. "I want a family—not now, of course, it's much too early for that—but eventually." And then suddenly he's standing up, and he's moving towards her, and the words are spewing out before he can make them sound calm and collected.
"Look, Cammie…" He's down on one knee now, and she's looking at him with a light in her eyes that he can't quite figure out, but she hasn't left him there on the ground, yet, and so he keeps going. "I wanted the time to be just right, but I've realized that right now is the best time. While things are still certain." There's a stretch of about five seconds, before he realizes he hasn't gotten around to asking the actual question yet.
"Will you marry me?"
.*.*.*.*.*.*.
"Yes."
And then there's only her answer, this one little sphere of happiness, of certainty, and he thinks that the world can keep on revolving around them. It doesn't matter.
Because the future may be unclear, but all he knows is that he wants to spend it with her.
Then he's rising to meet her, and she's thrown her arms around him, and he finally, finally kisses her.
They aren't running out of time anymore. There exists only this little bubble of them, and, for a moment, the clock's just stopped.
FIN.