A/N: YOU GUYSSSSSSSSSS. IT HAS BEEN THE BEST DAY EVER. (Aka, easy calculus, all college apps taken care of, the school librarian just GAVE me brand new hardback copy of the 4th Harry Potter book just because, among other things) ANYWAYS. Replies to reviews...

I didn't mean to make you late! I'm sorry! Glad you thought this was worth it! :) Pseudosister? What's that mean? Haha. TELL HER TO COME ON! Reading makes the mind grow sharper. Calculus... Hiss... Good luck at school!

Thank you! :) I think Ally means for Cammie to be more herself after she's not being brainwashed anymore, but she's still scarred from it. She wasn't herself the majority of book five but hopefully she'll be back to as normal as possible for book 6! I guess we'll see in a few days. Haha

Thank you! (Is this update soon enough? Sorry I haven't been home before 9 at night any night this week and haven't had a chance to update)

Oh my mother of Sweet Baby Jesus! Who IS that attractive young male in your profile picture and WHY is he not my husband? (Probably because I say things like 'attractive young male' haha) Thank you! :) you never know what Cammie'll choose... Maybe she's still crazy... Aww I'm sorry! You'll find tons of wonderful friends! The beginning of the year is always the rough icebreaker time anyways. :)

THANK YOU FOR APPRECIATING THE MUSIC! (Most people don't understand anything past Katy Perry and Bruno Mars these days, unfortunately.) I define my life by songs, so they're kinda important to me. Haha. Thank you! :)

Thank you guys! :)

9th grade was lovely, once I adjusted to the buzz of high school (well, not really a buzz cause my school's small, but you know what I mean) good luck! And thank you! :)

happy reading...

"Scared that your secret might come out, and you're gonna lose the life you got now.

Caught in a loop and it winds you back, but anything can change...

Take a chance now, cause it's waiting...

Share the truth now. A new day will come..."

- forKing&Country

She wasn't happy. At all.

"CAMERON ANN MORGAN!" I flinched at her scream, and Zach smirked.

"What have you DONE?!" It was only then that I noticed that Abby wasn't only mad. She was devastated. Crying. Abby Cameron doesn't cry. We stood in a standoff, just looking at one another, anticipating the next move, when Zach interrupted.

"...Wait..." He aimed a finger back and forth between us. "What did you—"

"Zachary, that'll be all. You can go now."

"But—"

"DISMISSED."

He opened his mouth again, then closed it, looking as if he had a lot to say before he was going to leave, then seemed to think better of it. "Yes ma'am," he muttered, turning and leaving.

And the strange thing? Of all the things I had to fear and worry about in that moment, the only thing I could think was that maybe Ms. Dabney's C&A WAS having an effect on Zach. Which made me laugh. Which made Abby glare.

"Why?" She collapsed back into the couch of her apartment as soon as the door was shut again. "Why did you... What POSSESSED you to..." It was then that I knew that I had done one thing that very few people had ever accomplished. I'd made Abby Cameron speechless.

"He knew. I couldn't stand him knowing. It was sloppy of me, so I fixed it," I explained, getting more and more sheepish the further along I got. It sounded more and more foolish.

"CAMMIE," my name was nearly a yell off of her lips, then she took a deep breath and let it out slowly, starting again. "Cammie, Zach knowing what your decision was wasn't a bad thing. He isn't dangerous. He just wants what's best for you." She shook her head slowly, then stood up abruptly, muttering, "We all just want what's best for you."

I sat down on the couch, noting how the leather squeaked so that I could make the action silent the next time. The wheels in my head were turning at Liz-like speed as I watched her pace and murmured, "You all... Wait. You aren't just here for you. Mom told you to talk to me."

She huffed. "Yeah. And Joe and half the rest of the faculty. Hell, even TOWNSEND called me up. I blame YOU for making me have to hear his sorry voice." I wondered if she'd realized that she was tapping her toe uncontrollably, but figured that she did when she stopped abruptly and held up a finger. That's when I heard the faint noise as well. It was a door away, but the breathing was still audible.

"ZACHARY! I know you're still out there!" (Operative Morgan noted that while he was probably the best agent of her graduating class, Zach still couldn't pull a fast one on Abby)

There was no response from the door. "Well, you'd mightas well go ahead and come back in," Abby muttered something even my spy ears couldn't detect, and when the door creaked open and an ashamed Zach rushed to the couch beside me, she sighed as if she had had way too little sleep for a very, very long time.

"I'm just wor—"

"No, you're just sloppy. God knows you'll get your neck snapped one of these days for it," Abby snapped, and both Zach and I knew better than to cross her again. Zach's hand found mine, though his gaze never wavered from Abby, and his long fingers twined tightly through my small ones.

"What makes you think that this isn't what's best for me?" I demanded, somehow finding the strength and will to argue. "I, personally, think that it will be best for me. Maybe I SHOULD lay low. Maybe I SHOULD—"

"This is NOT the answer, Cammie. Without hope of the CIA acquiring some sort of personal gain, they'll drop their security support. You'll have no protection whatsoever. You'll be on your own."

I reasoned aloud, "That's a lie, Aunt Abby. And you know it. I'll never be on my own. Plus, the Circle's not exactly a threat anymore."

"Not a THREAT anymore, Cammie? How could you say that when—oh..." Zach trailed off mid-exclamation, seeming to come to some sort of realization in his mind, then tacked on a quick, "Mom's not dead, Gallagher Girl."

As if I didn't know that.

They were treating me like I was an infant. And although I may have tried to throw myself off of a balcony just months before, they knew as well as I that I was becoming more like myself every day.

They knew that I was careful. They knew that I would make good decisions, no matter how sudden. They knew that I was still a Gallagher Girl. Zach reminded me of it every day.

But they also knew as well as I that even Gallagher Girls still make mistakes.

"Cammie, what did you DO?" Zach's question was more like a plea. "What did you choose?"

"I don't know, Zach. What did YOU choose? Surely not anything to do with that letter, right?"

It was a low blow, and I knew it. Even if I didn't know what was even IN the letter. But he deserved it, and it shut him up.

"What letter?" Abby was looking back and forth between us as if she was trying to figure out which critical piece of information she was missing.

Zach muttered "it's nothing" under his breath, then let go of my hand and braced himself on his knees.

Abby shook her head. "You can change your decision, Cam. You can fix this," she picked up a Manila folder off of her coffee table and handed it to me. It was thick and heavy in my hands, and it made me wonder exactly how long they'd been keeping tabs on what I'd choose. Inside, tons of papers documented every move I'd made for the entirety of my career at Gallagher. Everything except, of course, the last summer.

"Why does any of this matter?" Zach flipped through the stack on my lap, then paused at one particularly thick packet of papers. "Ooh, I like this one," he smirked, and I ripped the papers out of his grasp, shoving the title as far away as possible.

"What went through my mind sophomore year was none of your business," I snapped, trying to decide if I should be embarrassed or amused.

"Au contrare, Gallagher Girl," he let out a short laugh that almost sounded kind of sad. "I promise you, it was ALL of my business."

"Excuse me?" I flinched as he ran a finger slowly down my arm.

"How the hell did this turn into a sexually charged banter?" Abby exclaimed, sounding particularly exasperated, and I wished that I could crawl into a hole and die of embarrassment. "You can work out your relationship problems and reveal your secrets on your own time. I don't want to hear it. There is POINT to this meeting."

I raised an eyebrow, and she huffed again. "Your mother is devastated. And I would think that after all of the emotional strain she's been through over the past years, you would want to do what's best for her as well as you. What's best for all of us. You need protection, Cameron. You need to be safe."

And as much as I loved Aunt Abby, I found the whole situation to be quite ironic. My family was begging me to be safe... By submitting to a life of danger. So maybe I was crazy. Maybe Zach's mother still had some kind of reign over me. Maybe my priorities were mixed up. Maybe I was afraid of commitment. Maybe I really would never be the same. Maybe I was making the worst decision of my life, and maybe I knew that deep down.

But all I could do was laugh. And that was probably the scariest thing of all. That, and the sight of Abby's hand flying towards my cheek as she slapped me—hard.

"What is she talking about?" Zach burst out of the room behind me, jogging a step to get ahead of me. When I ignored him and walked faster, he snapped. "CAMMIE."

The last person that I wanted to talk to about my decision was the person that made me change it. I just wanted to take a long, hot shower and crawl into bed. We did, after all, have CoveOps finals the next day.

"Gallagher Girl, look at me," he grabbed my arm and spun me around to face him.

"Zach, I don't have time for this right now, and quite frankly, neither do you. We have finals tomorrow and—"

"Then we're going to make time," he opened a secret passageway and pulled me in behind him. I hadn't heard Zach so serious in a long, long time. As he pushed me back against the passageway's wall, he raised my head, giving me no way to escape or look away.

"I didn't commit some kind of crime. I didn't do anything worse than what you did, Zach, and we both know that's true." He glanced away for a moment, and I saw something flash in his eyes that I couldn't name before I pressed on with, "I'm not a little girl, Zach. I can make my own decisions. I have a right to do what I think is best for me."

He didn't miss a beat. "What's best for you, Cammie?" His eyes were begging me to tell him, and at the close proximity, even in the dark, I could see them sparkling, always flashing dangerously between deep emerald and a light olive or teal color that I couldn't quite ever put my finger on.

I smelled the scent of him— the one amazing smell that could only be described as Zach, I felt his warm breath against my cheek, and I knew that even if I'd wronged him one too many times, even though I'd abandoned him, I'd blamed him, I'd told him that I didn't trust him, and I'd held secrets from him, I knew the one way that I could undo it all, even just for a moment.

He knew what I was thinking—he saw it in my eyes and my mannerisms. "Cammie, this isn't the time for—"

The rest of his words were drowned out with my mouth, and almost immediately, his stiff, on-guard intensity dissolved into something soft and careful. As I melted along with him, I thought that maybe, just maybe, that moment was what we had both been needing.

When we parted, it was a mutual decision. When we joined hands and walked back up to my room, it was a mutual decision. When we didn't speak the entire way, it was a mutual decision. When he kissed me on the forehead and left me at my doorstep, even then, it was a mutual decision.

And in a world where most decisions were becoming increasingly controversial, I finally understood that time was all we needed.

Time was what we decided on.

And sometime soon, maybe even the next day, we would have to confront our lives again and watch them spin out of control.

I would have to face both my mother and Joe, because Abby didn't get anywhere with me.

Zach would have to figure out a lot of things. Where he could go. Who he could trust.

But for then, we'd buy time.

We already knew it would come at a high price.

So? Review? Please? Tell me how your favorite football team is doing?

~Inez