I woke up a few hours later with my head on Zach's shoulder, to find him playing with my hair. I was still pretty tired, so when I whispered: "I'm sorry I fell asleep on you," to Zach, he laughed because I must've sounded almost drunk.

"That's okay." He said, smirking at my messed up hair and make-up. I stretched, and then got off him to try to go to the washroom. He wouldn't get up, so I had to practically climb over him. When I got the washroom, I shuddered at what I saw in the mirror. I looked awful. I cleaned up as best as I could in the tiny space and walked back to Zach. Again, he wouldn't let me pass, this time he went was far as tripping me, so I fell across him, my hands outstretched to the window, my stomach on his lap and my feet tangled up with his. He laughed so hard he almost woke up all the sleeping passengers on the plane. I silenced him with a look and a quick punch on the arm. I managed to untangle myself from him and sit down in my seat.

For some reason, the plane suddenly turned super cold. I shivered, and I was about to reach up to turn off the air conditioning blowing at my head when Zach put his arm around me. He wasn't even looking at me; he was reading a newspaper, but he noticed I was cold, and it seemed like putting his arm around me was almost an involuntary action, or an instinct. I didn't know if he was doing it for the sake of our covers, or if he was jumping back to the way things had been at Gallagher, but I didn't mind it at all. I snuggled closer to him and whispered in his ear about our mission. The conversation was entirely in Farsi, of course. To any onlooker, it might look like we were exchanging sweet loving words, but we were actually devising a plan.

When the plane landed, at about 3PM local time, we grabbed our luggage and rented a car, heading out of the airport as quickly as possible. Once again, Zach didn't let me drive, so I had to ride shotgun for the long drive to our hotel in Times Square. Zach said that the CIA had booked everything, so I didn't really know what to expect when we pulled into the hotel parking lot. A valet immediately came to assist us with our car, and a porter grabbed our two small bags and placed them on a trolley. We walked up to our room, sticking to our covers of the rich, snobby couple vacationing in New York.

Once we got up to our suite on the 11th floor, we waited for the porter to leave, and then we relaxed. I looked around, and, much to my dismay, found one queen size bed. "One bed," I yelled to Zach, questioningly. "Dibs," he yelled back from the living room. I rolled my eyes. I started unpacking my things and decided to take a shower. I went into the bathroom to find a shower with no curtain, just a see-through glass door, and a huge bathtub across from it. To top it off, the actual door to the bathroom was right across from the shower stall, and it was glass too. If Zach wanted, he could stand against the door and peer at my naked silhouette. I groaned. This was just fabulous.

I went into the bathroom, hanging as many towels as I could over the door so it would be less transparent. I had made sure to bring my clothes with me, so after my shower I got dressed into my old Gallagher sweats and a t-shirt, pulling my wet hair back into a French braid. If it had been any other guy staying with me, I might have made more of an effort with my appearance, but Zach had seen my in a much worse state than this, so I walked out of the bathroom and sat next to him on the couch.

He was mumbling to himself, going through the mission files, memorizing the identities of the men we would have to tail. I took out my mission files and did the same thing, trying to piece together the purpose of this mission. We sat comfortably like that for a while until he dropped his papers abruptly and looked at me. I turned to face him, raising my eyebrows, asking the silent question.

"How many times have things like that happened to you, Gallagher Girl?" Zach asked, staring directly into my eyes with his gorgeous green ones.

"I don't know what you mean…" I answered, confused.

"I mean," he clarified, "How many times have you been attacked randomly like you were in my building this morning?"

"A couple," I answered, lying. "It's no big deal, really."

Zach looked at me, shaking his head. "You're lying, Gallagher Girl." He saw through me.

"Okay, fine. It happens a lot. It's been happening ever since I graduated. It doesn't matter. I'm fine."

Zach looked at me, his face changing into a frown. "And you've told someone, right?" He asked, even though he knew the answer.

"No." I whispered, looking away from him.

Zach let out an angry breath of air, and started to yell at me: "Cam, you can't just pretend it doesn't happen! What's wrong with you? You could get seriously hurt! If the Circle has somehow managed to reform and is after you again…"

I interrupted him, yelling just was loud as he was: "I'm not pretending! I can defend myself! I don't need protection! I don't need a security detail following me at all times! I'm older now! It's not like I'm 17 and back at Gallagher. I'm fine by myself."

Zach started to yell again, but I cut him off with a whisper so quiet he had to lean forward to catch my words.

"Besides," I whispered, "It's not the Circle. It's something else, maybe even something worse."

Concern replaced the anger in Zach's eyes as he stared at me, trying to read into my words and see my emotions.

"Who is it?" he asked, whispering just as quietly as I was.

I shook my head. "I don't know. Whoever it is, they've been following me for the past six months, attacking me when I'm alone, away from work and away from my apartment. They don't tail me, they just…attack."

"Then why did you say you thought the guys from this morning might be from the Circle when I asked you about it?"

"I thought I recognized them." I admitted, looking directly at Zach. His eyes widened with alarm and then with recognition. He shuffled through the papers and pulled out a picture of one of our targets.

"It's him, isn't it?" He asked, already knowing what I was going to say.

I nodded, grabbed the picture and studied it intently. "It is him. I'm sure of it."

"Well then Gallagher Girl, this mission just got a lot more complicated. Not only are we trying to tail them, but they might still be after you. Which, unfortunately for you, means-"

"'Cammie doesn't go anywhere without me.'" I imitated Zach's voice, knowing what he would say before he said it. Zach laughed at my poor imitation of his deep voice and put his arm around me, pulling me closer. "What I was actually going to say," he said, "Is that you don't get to keep anymore secrets. No more lying, no more watering down strange things you see. This is real. This is a mission. Tell me everything that happens the way it happens, don't try and make it sound less dramatic than it is. Got that?"

I sighed and nodded reluctantly. Suddenly Zach stood up, winked at me and yelled: "Good, because I think it's time to take my fiancé out to dinner."

"And put something nice on, Gallagher Girl. The budget for this mission is extremely high and I am all for wasting it on delicious over-priced food." Zach called to me from the bathroom, where he was showering.

"Yeah, yeah," I muttered, going to the bedroom and putting on about the only formal thing I had brought: my favourite little black dress. I went just above my knees, and had two thin straps that crossed in the back. The under-layer of the dress was a silky black material, while the top layer was delicate, black lace. I brushed out my hair, putting a silk black ribbon in it that matched my dress, and put on some nylons and my black shoes. The shoes were about two inches high, so I could still run in them. New York weather was still cold in March, so I put on my black trench coat, filling the secret inside pockets with weapons. I looked in the mirror and decided I resembled either a deadly CIA agent or a woman going to a fancy funeral. Neither were the look I was going for, but there wasn't anything I could do about it.

Zach came out of the bathroom, dressed in a suit and fiddling with his tie.

"Here, let me do that." I said, stepping towards him and tying his tie for him. I had to stand on my toes, even with shoes on, to reach his neck comfortably, and when I was done, I looked up at him. His eyes had a mischievous glint in them and, before I knew it, his arms were around my waist and he was dipping me towards the ground. The world turned upside-down and Zach's lips met mine. We kissed for the first time in months, and it was at that moment when I realized how much I had missed him. He broke away from me and let me up. I still had my arms around his neck so I pressed closer to him and hugged him, laughing at his nerve. He was laughing too, and when I pulled away from him slightly, he looked in my eyes and said: "You don't know how much I've missed you, Gallagher Girl."

I stopped laughing and looked up at him. "I missed you too, Zach."

We smiled at each other and he grabbed my hand, pulling me out to the door. We decided to eat at a restaurant that was only a couple of blocks from the hotel, in case we needed to head back there quickly. We were in full cover now, Zach being cocky and debonair and me laughing at everything he said, playfully rolling my eyes but holding his hand at the same time. Which, when I thought about it, wasn't much different than our normal interaction.

The restaurant we went into also had a section for dancing, and there was a band playing. And it wasn't normal kind of music. It was ballroom music, the kind Madame Dabney had taught to dance to a while back. The whole time we were eating I was hoping Zach wouldn't drag me onto the dance floor, because I really hated dancing. We were eating desert, so I thought I was safe. But, being Zach, he grabbed me and pulled me onto the floor in the last minute. I smiled at him, but internally I was panicking and he knew it. Zach just winked at me, pulling me towards him and leading me into the waltz, following the slow music that was playing. This, I didn't mind. It was slow, and all I had to remember to do was follow him. Suddenly, the music changed to an upbeat salsa, and Zach, enjoying himself, had me spinning and twirling as he pleased.

A few minutes later, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a man who looked familiar. He darted into a corner behind the bar, but I had recognized him. It was one of our targets. Zach saw my eyes following the man and pulled me closer, still dancing, so I could whisper in his ear. "Target 1, 8 o'clock, just left the scene." I whispered in Russian. "Follow him." Zach instructed me, this time in German. "You can do it, Gallagher Girl. You're the Chameleon. Target 2 spotted at 4 o'clock. I'll tail him. Meet me at the bar in ten with whatever information you managed to find. Don't go too far." He spun me one last time and I just had the chance to tell him to be careful before I left the dance floor to tail the guy. He had gone behind the bar, near the washrooms, so that's where I decided I needed to go. Taking my time, blending into the crowd, I noticed everything. I saw that the seventh ceiling tile from the left was crooked, that the bartender had missed a spot shaving just below his chin, and that my target was on the move. Quickening my pace, I followed him, remaining the right distance behind him the whole time, stopping when I felt like it, becoming one with the crowd.

My target went outside and I followed, shivering in the cold New York night air. I noted my Target's preferred hand, his gun hand, and that he had a limp, possibly caused by a sore muscle in his left knee. I observed his walking pace, his caution towards protecting himself from tails (obviously it wasn't very high) and the lump in his right back pocket, which, when I got closer, I realized was a key card to a hotel. The target went into a parking garage and I waited on the outside, ready to catch his license plate number. A few minutes later, he sped into traffic in a bright red sports car, license plate number 6R3 8933. I noted the make and model, and then I went back to the restaurant to find Zach.

While tailing my target, I had been lead into a rougher part of town, and, dressed the way I was, I looked like an easy target for local muggers. Sure enough, a few minutes later I was pulled roughly into an alleyway and forced to fight off my attacker. Luckily, he was weak and untrained, just a typical New York homeless person looking for money. I kicked him off me, shoving him against a wall. I saw a glint of silver in his hands and saw that he had a knife. Kicking him once more in the head, I walked out of the alley calmly, wiping off the blood from the small slash he had made in my arm.

Not wanting to go back into the fancy restaurant looking like I had just been, well, mugged, I waited outside for Zach to notice me. He did, and came out, taking my coat with him. I put it on gratefully, instantly warming up.

"Anything," I asked. But he simply shook his head as if to say 'not here.' So we walked back to the hotel in silence, sticking to our covers all the way.