"Zachary, what a surprise," the Director stated dryly as Zach walked into his office many years later, the spot on his nose where she had bitten him now just a reminder of what Morgan and Goode had had long ago. He called it his battle scar, from the war of their love.

"Not really. You called me in here, and even if you hadn't, your doormat would have told you I was coming."

"On to more important matters, I have a mission for you," he announced, barely sparing Zach a glance out of the corner of his eye.

"Well duh, why else would you call me into your office?" he smirked.

"To fire you, which I very well may do if you don't drop the cockiness," Mr. Jacobs retorted.

"But you wouldn't, you need me for this mission, remember?"

That earned him a full- out death glare, the first look he had gotten from behind his boss's computer screen since entering the room.

"The American Idol winner from last night. Morgan Matthews. She's the protectee, you're the protector. Got it? Now shoo."

He didn't say it, so Zach didn't bother to correct him: it was Cameron Morgan he would be protecting, not Morgan Matthews. Because even though the latter was an utterly, irreversibly changed version of the former, in his mind, they were still one and the same, interchangeable.

He knocked. She answered. Just like that day, so many years ago, when he had knocked on the door to her heart, and she had answered. Boy, had she.

"So I'm your bodyguard. What a coincidence. You used to love those." You used to love me.

But like that day in the sandbox years ago, they ignored the underlying subliminal conversation they both heard and neither could deny.

She tried to deny it by denying him. "I wasn't actually looking for a bodyguard. My manager says it makes me appear weak. I was looking for you, actually. I told Jacobs to send you to me." I talked to my former potential boss, but my boyfriend of six years wasn't good enough to keep in contact with.

They ignored the extra, unspoken sentence yet again

But some things weren't so easy to ignore, and he had to acknowledge the proverbial elephant in the room. "Why'd you leave?"

Never had she been so honest in her life. "You had my heart, and I needed it back."

"Why? What was so wrong about our love?"

"I had to give it to someone else." Her gaze was settled, unfocused, on the wall behind him, somewhere above and to the left of his head. His Tiny Dreamer was dreaming again.

"Does that person still have it?"

Her gaze snapped back to his face quickly and she bit her lip, nodding seriously. He sighed, running his hand back through his hair

"In that sandbox... I thought I found love at first sight." her voice rang through the silence of her home, her voice low and gravelly with the lateness of the hour but laced with the clarity of someone who had thought over her words for a long while, lost plenty of sleep over them.

"Well you didn't. Because love doesn't exist! It is a misconception. Miscommunication between the heart and the brain, misinterpretation of feelings. I learned that a while after you left, around the time I realized you weren't coming back. Because if we weren't in love, if what we had wasn't love, I don't know what is, and to be in love, you have to be together, at least in spirit. And we weren't." he said with a fiery passion.

"I did love you. Not only did you have a special place in my heart, you had my heart. But I had to leave because... because I loved someone else more."

"The same one who has your heart now?" The one I'll never measure up to?

She nodded, again, and this time he felt that they hadn't ignored life's italics, her nod was acknowledging both what was said and what wasn't. And somehow, that hurt him even more.

"Who was it?" He was dying to know who was more important than the one who knew her better than she did herself.

"Sean Connery." It was a small whisper, but it was enough.

"Now that's irony. He will never be a spy, but pretends to be, while you will always be a spy and pretend not to be. No, you try to stop being a spy, and he tries to become one. I knew you loved irony, but I didn't know you lived it!"

"You don't understand, Zach," she said quietly.

"I don't understand! What is there to understand?" he roared loudly.

Feet padded down the stairs quietly until a toddler appeared at their feet.

"Mommy? Quiet. Late." The little boy rubbed sleep out of his little blue eyes, and Cammie picked him up. Zach's mouth fell open.

"Not Sean Connery the actor, Goode. Sean Connery, your son."

And he knew he believed because it was love at first sight all over again.

Consummatum est! Tis finished. Short, I know. This was for a contest, so it skips A LOT of stuff. It had to be 1000-8000 words, 1-3 chapters, so this is what I'm entering, and when I get 5-10+ chapters, i'll upload the WAY better version. Which will most definitely NOT have the same ending. This was nice for something short that was supposed to center around true love, but for anything else, it would suck. So keep your eyes peeled!

Much love...

FlamingRain