My friends, my friends,
Do not ask me,
What your sacrifice was for.
Empty chairs at empty tables,
Where my friends will sing no more.
-Empty Chairs at Empty Tables (Les Miserables)
Ten Things That Have Changed Since Summer.
1. She goes running at night.
It became a ritual she started when she began having trouble sleeping at night. Somewhere around one in the morning, she'd grab a P&E uniform and, careful not to trigger any of the many traps her friends set, tiptoe out of her room. The moment she set foot on the grounds, she would break into a run.
And a run it was. It was fast paced and exhilarating, and by the end of it, she felt so amazingly alive that it was almost enough to forget what she was running from.Almost.
Not that anyone ever commented on it, but she knew everyone was aware of this tradition. It was the Gallagher Academy;they probably had pressure sensors under the grass to go along with the high definition cameras that could spot anything from a mile away. And one's not to forget Bex's shock voluntary shock therapy initiative. But maybe the guards, the faculty, her mother could sense it themselves that she needed this. For whatever reasons, nobody ever stopped her from stepping out.
She didn't wear any shoes. Something about them seemed restricting, like shackles binding her a past she'd spend forever trying to escape. The pain of the cuts and blisters she got sharpened her vision, pushed her to go faster. Away from whatever horrors was chasing her. And when fatigue would finally reach her, sometimes after hours and hours of relentless sprinting, she's walk back to her dorm with as much dignity as she could muster, wash her feet, and hope to God that sleep would be dreamless for the first time in months.
(It never was.)
2. She always wears long shirts.
Even on the hottest of days, her sleeves would reach far past her wrists. Sweatshirts, blouses, blazers, whatever worked to keep the pale skin of her arms covered.
Whatever kept the long deep gashes that trail from wrist to shoulder hidden.
The scars weren't only limited to her arms, of course. There were several particularly horrible burn marks that layered her stomach (She vaguely recalls a lit cigarette being pressed against her skin). And then ten raised and uneven welts on her back (A white hot pain and blood dripping onto the floor). And it's hard to forget the bruises and cuts on her feet that caused her to wince with every step for almost a month (Not a damn clue where those came from).
But then there are the marks that are in places that couldn't be seen in the most revealing of clothing. The scars that mark the most intimate parts of her body, that violate her very being. Clean, even cuts, to precise to have been an accident. The ones that come with a brief, fleeting image of a tall man walking towards her, with a cruel, lustful grin on his face. The scars that she's afraid, so afraid, of learning their origin.
The scars will fade eventually, but until them she's gonna make damn sure nobody sees them.
3. She never eats M&M's.
Especially not the kind with the peanuts in the middle. Sweets in general became something to avoid.
Of course after she came back from her little... vacation, she couldn't help eating constantly. Hell, she was twenty pounds underweight, she deserved to pig-out. But eventually, eating became a chore and she felt like eating less and less and less and-
Poof. Her appetite was gone.
(And she's almost positive it had absolutely nothing to do with the man who would never indulge in his sweet tooth again)
It's not like she's starving herself, by any means. It's just that she decided munching on chocolate took a backseat to everything else in her life. Sugar just didn't seem like a priority to her anymore. She ate enough to keep her nourished, healthy stuff. So when the kitchen served crème brûlée, she picked up an apple. When Grandma Morgan offered her a stack of flapjacks, she fed them to the dog and ate oatmeal with Grandpa.
When Zach and her were in an elevator to the sublevels, and he silently offers her an M&M with a knowing smile, she bursts into tears.
4. She never sings.
Not even the slightest of hums. Even listening to music was pushing it. When that damnable tune finally got out of her head, she was determined to make sure no song did that again
So when her roommates blast the Beach Boys on their stereo, and run about the dorm shrieking the words to "Barbra Ann" (loudly and very off key), she excuses herself to the library. When they have to learn the Slovakian National Anthem in C&A, she covers her ears and try's so, so hard to tune out the harmony of 30 voices bouncing around the sound-carrying tearoom. And no one questions it, because no one wants to be the one to make the crazy girl snap.
It's not that she didn't like music. She was just afraid of what singing led to last time.
Madness. A broken heart. Several brushes with death. A legacy she had to redeem.
Singing's brought her nothing but trouble.
5. Her favorite color is red.
Not just any red. Scarlet.
It used to be green, the color of her school. The color of hope and Zach's eyes. The color of her favorite M&M's. But then hope proved itself to be a lie, and it turned out Zach's eyes was an unfortunate linking result to his crazy ass family. And M&M's lost their value. So she changed it.
She likes to think its because red is so strong and powerful. Raw. She pretends its because red is the color of love and rebirth and passion.
But she knew she was kidding herself from the moment she stared down at the dead body of the man she doesn't remember shooting.Red blood on white snow: that she does remember.
(She can't decide which red is brighter: his blood or her vision)
6. She's on suicide watch.
That was acceptable. After all, she hadtried to kill herself, and despite that she was currently in a proper state of mind (mostly), it was going to be awhile before anyone let her near any knives or ledges.
But it was so annoying. She couldn't go anywhere without someone questioning her motives. Everyone was so careful around, treating her like glass. So convinced she was going to break, that almost all her conversations went the same way:
"Where're ya going, Cam?"
"Just to breakfast."
"Oh. Well remember, traveling in secret passages is dangerous. We don't want anything to happen to you. And that don't forget that you're beautiful and smart, and you have so much to live for. Like Zach. And your roommates And your mother. They would all be so devastated if you did something you'd regret. We all would be. You know, why don't I just come with you. Just in case"
It was so repetitive she wanted to tear her newly shortened hair off.
But she knows it's her own fault. That she did almost leap off a balcony. A really high up balcony. That she could have died. She knows that for awhile, she really went off the deep end.
So she puts up with it, and when Liz puts a tracker under her skin in her sleep, she looks the other way. Just in case.
7. She sleeps with a gun under her pillow.
It scares her roommates beyond belief to know that they are sleeping next to someone with a lethal weapon under her head. Especially a mentally unstable, amnesiac, formerly-suicidal teenage girl (Where did she get one, anyway?). As spies, they understood the necessity of protection. But as girls it was easily recognizable they were in the most highly protected school in the country: they didn't need protecting here.
It keeps me safe. She reasons,It makes me feel safe.
(No one mentions those are two very different things.)
So when she feels a tugging on her palm in the middle of the night, a tug that in the dead of night wasn't distinguishable as Bex's aggressive grip on the barrel, it wasn't her fault she reacted. It wasn't her fault she'd gone on instinct, taking the safety off and firing on instinct. And she hoped to God it wasn't her fault she ended up shooting Elizabeth Sutton.
Barely, they said. She barelyshot her best friend. Called her lucky, because it completely missed the bones in Liz's arm. They said she must have inadvertently knew not to fire directly, that her subconscious made her miss because, deep down, she knew she wasn't in trouble.
Cammie knew better though. She'd felt that instinct once before. The insatiable urge to protect herself, the animalistic survival instinct that shot through her veins and made her see red.
She'd shot to kill.
She apologized profusely, of course, and the small blonde accepted graciously, if a little loopy from the pain medications. And Cammie knew that it time to put the gun in her doctors hand and walk back to bed. But she couldn't help it. That night, she still managed to sneak a gun under her head once again. Better safe than sorry.
8. She trusts Zachary Goode.
Sure she'd always liked Zach. And God knows there was never a time where she hadn't been attracted to him. They'd even been a couple (sort of) for a while now.
But there's only a handful of people a spy can trust. That list doesn't get any bigger when your hunted by a terrorist organization. And it definitely doesn't help his case that his mother is one of the leaders of said terrorist organization.
So it's a surprise to say the least when she wakes up one day and stops questioning if there was more of his Catherine in him then just his eyes. The morning she doesn't look at him and wonder whether or not he's going to turn on her.. The day she stops looking at him as a Zachary Goode- Liar Extraordinaire, with a past darker than his eyes- and just looks at him as Zach. Just Zach. The boy would never stop trying to leave his mothers legacy behind. The spy with a million covers to hide his heart of gold.
The man she loved.
Even if he had a few skeletons in his closet.
9. She gets flashbacks. A lot.
Weird, brief ones. Strange images she can almost never make sense off before they're gone.
They show up with out provocation or warning, and mostly in her sleep. Most of them are bad. A pounding ache in the back of her head, accompanied by inexplicable terror and an image of a white forest with evil looming trees. A blinding rage at a brown eyed woman with blood for hair. Fear at a tall man with a goatee and a knife. Fingers rubbed bloody scratching in the lettersC.A.M. into a wooden bedframe.
A heartache that comes with a stone grave.
And of course, there are words that never stop ringing through her mind.
You caught the girl? Excellent, excellent.
You have a very pretty body, young lady. I'd hate for anything...bad to happen. We have a lot of men here and, well- if you don't talk, we might not care as much to keep them away.
So, you'll charm my son against me, into a lovestruck fool, but won't answer any of my questions, you filthy, little slut.
Show her what happens to spies who don't talk.
The lines that rattle through her brain, and resonate through her mind in her sleep. Evil words spoken by evil people with evil intent. Their mere voices was enough to make her shudder in her dreams.
Not all of her memories were horrid, though. There's a flash of blonde hair and a spider man watch, an instance of weathered, wrinkled hands giving her a bracelet and a smile. The warm feeling of clutching her schools legacy in the palm. Moments that make her think that maybe her entire summer wasn't born from some sick person's cruelest nightmare.
Then those faithful words hammer in her head again. She changes her mind.
10. She doesn't have a father.
And, somehow, that's changed everything.
YES! I've been trying to finish 7 different one-shots for the past two months and every time I always get like 500 words in and then I loose interest or inspiration. Which sucks. But I really liked this, I got the idea from la Percy Jackson fandom (guilty pleasure y'all) and thought I'd try my hand at it. And it was fun. Um, as fun as writing about PTSD can be. I'm gonna go do my Biology homework now.
-Sarah
P.S. I've been feeling a new multi-chapter story coming on. I really like the idea and I think I could be pretty good at updating this one (already have a lot of the plot outlined). If I do it, its gonna be somewhere from 3-10 chapters. Depends on how it plans out. What do you think? Should I go for it, or is it more like "UPDATE YOUR OTHER STORIES, WOMAN!" (that's just how I imagine all of you talk.)