Woah I didn't know how I did this. Seriously didn't think I'd get this chapter done this week because at the begining of the day I only had three paragraphs and there needed to be a lot of content. Enjoy the uncomfortable unrequited Preston/Martin bromance, the blossoming maybe of Zammie and the tensions of the Matt/Joe bromance that is attached to something so monumental. Yes! In that order! As we delve into the three pairs of people who are completely alone in understanding each others circumstances.

Chapter. 4 – Alone Together

Screens of information and case files and reports from thirty different morgues and other sources across the globe were displayed in place of an entire wall. Which was considerably more impressive than it sounded when you considered the overwhelming size of the rooms of the conference and office hall like air to this place – the smell of fresh paper and overheated plastic hit you at every turn - but this room was sectioned with nothing but a row of desks in front of the screened wall and a selection of computers and gadgets that helped present it.

Preston used one of the touch-screen laptops on the table to scroll through the files with his name on so they appeared on the center screens. He'd memorized every file pertaining to his father – with little care for the ones that moved swiftly onto how to deal with him as if his father had been nothing more than an asset – reading his father's files now felt like bumping into an old acquaintance that had changed in a way you couldn't quite put your finger on.

The hands on his novelty Spider-man watch ticked to 12.59 in the silence of the room. Preston had burnt most of the stuff that had come from his life before the circle had taken him in the middle of his grief and trained him into this, before he'd pushed himself past what they'd intended to make him, before his father had died. He'd been so used to wearing this however that he'd forgotten he was wearing it in the midst of the destruction he'd caused in one of his fits of anger and sorrow before all the emotion had been drained out of him. Once he'd realised it was still there he had considered tearing it off but he'd calmed quite considerably by the time the flames had turned to ashes and he couldn't bring himself to do anything but brush his fingers against it gently and think about when his father had given it to him.

Another minute ticked on and Martin Abrams entered the room, unsure of what to expect but absorbing every inch of the screens he walked across too without wasting time in gawking at the expanse of it – there were more important things at hand. Preston didn't acknowledge Martin even as he came to level to the office chair he was occupied with, he continued with reading the files he had around him. Martin glanced at everything that was on the walls for his own purposes but eventually turned to the screen that matched with what Preston was consumed with.

"It must have sucked." Martin could have said he was sorry, ordinary people said that to grieving people sometimes but he was stood in the face of a grief that had nestled its way into the heart for a scar to have blistered over it permanently. He had also grown up in an environment that shunned emotional contact and had taught him early that sorrow didn't help anyone. None of that changed the fact that he couldn't imagine what it would have been like to have been a child suffocated by the Circle of Cavan after years of happy life – Preston Winters had had it happen to him and although Cammie hadn't known for the majority of the time he could remember her it had happened to her too – Martin had never even learned to breathe.

"Sucked." Preston's expression did not change, he was the one who had invited Martin here and had these files on display by his own accord. He tried the word on for size before swiping the screen and sending the files into the jumble of everything else. "That sounds like a good enough way to describe it."

"How do you know it was Solomon who killed him?" Martin asked reservedly, in a tone that could be forgiven if the question ticked off his boss. Preston pushed the chair further out as he stretched his legs on the ground and looked over the screens reflected in his glasses, answering the question with his own.

"Humor me Martin, what do you see?" Martin did as he was told. Initially he had assumed this was every bit of the Circle's information on its potential threats known by the names of Matthew Morgan and Joseph Solomon but the latter's name was too prominent for an organisation that had only officially known he'd been against them that year. That was the second contradiction Martin noticed, the first being the branding of the CIA's crest on almost every single document. This wasn't the Circle's information.

"Preston, how did you get all of this?" his voice was rather flat as he continued to absorb what details on the screen he could make out. Preston smirked a little out of the corner of his eyes and replied with his usual vague, seemingly-irrelevant turn of conversation.

"Double Agents. Fantastic assets in our business – if you have them you will win, but they are impossible to trust completely and are consequently only passed around within the lower ranks of the Circle or the CIA or whichever groups they belong to. I believe this is a mistake; the CIA are trusting the wrong people. I managed to get some of the files in relation to my dad's death at the end of my first year in being trained with the circle, I'd always understood computers – I managed to figure it out but the amount I gathered wasn't particularly impressive. It was enough to find this..." Preston slid the chair along the row of desks and clicked at a computer - another file flicked onto the center screen. It was the brief sort of case report you would get before any details were issued if the incident was important enough to require an immediate message. Raid unsuccessful; number of escaped subjects high, failed to acquire target Winters – deceased via Agent Joseph Solomon.

"I've known that Joe Solomon was a double agent since I found this but I didn't do anything because that wouldn't have been revenge – that would have been too easy and with what the circle did to me I admit that I want them to win as much as you do, only with a sufficient amount of casualties to make him feel what I felt. It did open my eyes to the possibility of double agents though, so a few high-ranked CIA officers report personally to me. What you're looking at Martin, is the result."

Martin looked between Preston and the screens in something of a disbelieving state, undeniably impressed. Names Martin was and was not familiar with stuck out as founding family leaders of the circle; Preston's father seemed to be one of only two that had been killed before much interaction from the CIA had occurred, although one had been killed during a failed rescue mission from the circle and two others had committed suicide before they could give up information (one in custody and one before they got the chance) the raid around Preston's dad must have been messy.

"How did you get agents with this sort of clearance?" Martin didn't look away from the display of information, he was buzzing – with the same Intel as the leader of the Circle of Cavan of course it was going to burn - if he had known when his birthday was, Martin would have sworn it had come early.

"Everyone has a monster inside them, Agent Abrams, I've learnt how to bargain with them."

Air vents were Cammie's friends. She could climb in, through and out of one without too much hassle or signs of effort or exhaustion in her appearance; which was exactly how she got to sitting on top of Zachary Goode's bookshelf in the middle of the night. She ran her hands over the pages of his copy of JFK: What really happened, she brought it up to smell the pages at the top – it didn't smell like the books at the Circle, although it might have been the mental block of comparisons that existed at the Gallagher academy for her because if this book was Zach's it might have well have spent a lot of time around Circle locations. She breathed and brought the book back down, chucking it lazily at the sleeping form to her right.

Zach woke up with a start, wrapping his blanket around his hands as he got to his feet as if intending to use it as a whip, his hair was stuck up from sleeping funny but his eyes were alert and he stood with the posture of a soldier ready for an attack. He looked a little baffled until he finally noticed Cammie who was staring at him with a rather dead and unimpressed expression. He slouched back with a sigh of frustration and chucked the duvet loose of his hand and back onto his bed - blanketing the book that had woken him up.

"What the hell, Morgan?!" Cammie wasn't fazed by his attitude, he didn't look at her as he made his way to the light switch so the room wasn't so colorless and it was harder to ignore the fact that he wasn't currently wearing a shirt.

"Bex was snoring." She excused lamely, not entirely sure why she had chosen the time and the place, she didn't need to talk to him; she was a big girl that could look after her damn self but she hadn't been able to settle after another stupid attempt at playing happy families with her parents so she'd needed to do something.

"I was snoring." Zach reminded impatiently as he turned around harshly with his hand on a glass at his desk.

"You weren't." Cam rejected quietly, fiddling with the lace of the shoe on the leg she had cradled to her chest, the other falling lazily over the bookshelf.

"Oh yeah, I forgot you're stalking me now apparently, exactly how long were you watching me sleep?" He asked as he let the door to his bathroom swing behind him. Cammie heard a tap turn and when Zach re-emerged he looked more awake with water dripping from his hair and facial features – she decided not to assess whether or not it made him look better or worse.

"Not that long," Cam replied with continued flatness, she pushed herself down from the shelves and Zach was taller than her again. "Spoken to your dad recently?" It sounded a lot like casual talk which would have been an even odder objective for breaking into someone's room in the middle of the night but Cammie wanted to make him feel uncomfortable enough to maybe get what she wanted to talk about possible. It worked, his eyes turned away before his body did in distaste as an ugh noise broke from him as he walked over to a shirt that had been folded onto a chair by the blinded window.

"Townsend is in Finland for a few weeks." He didn't elaborate any further, pulling the top over his head, he avoided eye-contact even when he'd lost the good reason not to look. "Did you break into my room just to talk about him? Being stuck alone with me in the middle not to your liking?" he didn't look at her even as he referenced one of their more eye-opening fights.

"They don't think of me as stuck between the Gallagher Academy and the Circle of Cavan, Zach, I don't get to slip under the radar like you – or how you used to at least, you're getting yourself a fan club with Townsend and Solomon arguing over you all the time." Zach gave a tired laugh as he looked at his feet. Cammie folded her arms and looked to the side before fixing him with a strong hold at the eyes that he couldn't look away from and she tried her subject with a clear reproachful tone in her voice.

"I know this isn't really a good time to talk about this but...was Catherine a good mother, Zach?" For a moment the question hung in the air as the expression Zach had fallen into at the mention of his father that he'd been avoiding any reference of for months didn't change, only slightly as he shifted his weight and gave a bleak laugh as he dared to look away for a second.

"So it might not be Townsend but it is still my parents that made you climb through a vent to talk to me about?"

"With you, she couldn't have faked it – not all the time and I need to know, Zach. I need to know her." Zach got away with another escape of eye-contact as he rolled his eyes but she could tell he was considering her for what she really was. Cammie didn't like it, but Zach was the only one who could really have the chance to understand what she was going through and vies versa, so the both of them just had to put up with it.

"She really does care about me, she does love me." He confirmed like that was enough to ease the tempest in the form of Catherine Goode that was battling with how Cammie's life was unfolding at the moment. It didn't help – she'd been hoping he'd say she'd been awful, that way she could dismiss her as having no humanity in a single inch of her soul. "But she really doesn't know how to do those things. Sure it made it harder to hate her - to start off with – because then I grew up."

"I find it incredibly easy," Cammie could hear the harsh murderer that couldn't be stopped that the Circle of Cavan had created in her words but when it came to making them burn for what they had done she was glad of it until it was over. "To hate Catherine; it's just that after what I thought she was to me I don't exactly enjoy it like they made me enjoy hating Matt and Rachel. The only thing that fights against it is what they did to my mind, that's not me, I just wanted to make sure you won't mind when I get to kill her." They both knew that they weren't the typical couple of teenagers complaining about parents and that they were both incredibly serious even as Zach laughed and said.

"Cammie, you are going to have to get in line and believe me when I say it's a long one."

There was nothing but the comfortable silence that was filled with the scratching of pens and the ticking from the clock as Matt sat at one of the students desks directly opposite and in front of the teachers desk that Joe had claimed as they marked their heaps of papers into the night in the classroom of Sub-level Two. Joe's phone sat ready by the side of the pile of papers yet to mark encase there was an emergency with Abby and the baby, a phone that he was always at least half aware of for every second she was pregnant. He wasn't one for setting legitimate homework; he'd usually say something relevantly profound in a demanding voice and hope that one day his students didn't die because of it. You couldn't let operatives in training get too used to a person's habits though, unexpected instances were bound to happen in their world. Matt only taught the Art of Covers and Disguises part of the course but was more used to marking, not that it was any less insufferable as the caffeine buzzed of before they made a new one.

"So she just left?" Joe asked as he turned another page without taking his eyes away from the words in front of him. Matt rubbed at his eyes before he answered and tried to refocus on the essay in front of him.

"Pretty much. I mean she has so much anger inside of her now I don't know if she's ever going to be able to learn how to care about people again. Cammie is obsessed with killing Catherine but if she does all the other emotions it's cutting off could destroy her like that and I have no idea how I can help her." Matt was exhausted and lost - he hadn't been a father with a breathing child to think about for years.

"Well maybe you shouldn't have started with pushing Rachel's cooking on her to be fair." Joe continued not to look up as he layered notes onto the paper in front of him and his voice was flat but it was the only style of banter the two were capable of. Matt was the first one to look up from the end of his scribbled note with furrowed eyebrows.

"Rude, Joe, Rude." Joe only glanced up for a split second as he circled the grade on the paper and pulled the next one in front of him. He shook his head once to emphasize his next words.

"It's true as well though, and Rachel isn't stupid - she knows it." Matt folded up his own paper and moved onto his next.

"Fine then; If it was Krissy who had been taken from you by the damn Circle of Cavan and brainwashed into hating you only to finally realize what had happened how would you deal with it?" Matt almost sounded like he was snapping and Joe looked up for longer this time.

"You should know not to joke about that." He said flatly but there was a warning in his tone that was utterly terrifying – Matt sat back in his chair in defeat and rubbed at his chin as he looked at nothing in particular in the corner of the room.

"I know, but I'm just saying that I know everything that I shouldn't do to make this okay but that leaves absolutely nothing that I can do. If we can finish with the circle without her getting involved then she might be able to begin moving on – I just don't want to leave them right now." He collapsed back down into resting both elbows onto the desk and flicking through another essay.

"But you will." It wasn't a question, Joe knew he would, for better or for worse they'd known that undoubtedly as soon as the feed of the CIA splinter-group's (that had once been them) information had reached them.

"Yeah, I will." Matt stifled a yawn as he said it. "But you Joe, you should stay with Abby." All focus on their marking was gone as Joe dropped his pen and focused a look on his friend that was slightly judging.

"You're kidding right? You want to deal with the circle on your own while I get stuck her on desk duty?" his hand gestured down to the paper in front of him at the notion. Matt struggled with his words before making his argument.

"Abby's pregnant." He pointed out and Joe raised his eyebrows to make his judging expression clearer.

"Oh really? I hadn't noticed Matt, I thought she'd just gained a lot of weight and developed a craving for sponges that made her throw up every morning. It sounds a lot like you're being hypocritical to the argument that you literally just excused yourself with." Joe pointed out with a confident sarcasm.

"It's different."

"No, it's not."

"It just seems like you're not too bothered about leaving her and Krissy." Matt regretted it as soon as he'd said it. Best not to go there with Joe.

"Of course I'm bothered about leaving them but we can get back before the baby's born." Matt raised his hands in surrender.

"Look, I'm just saying because it never exactly looks like-"

"Like I care? I control the way the things I care about work inside me because if I didn't it would affect the way I work which is something I can't afford. Although it sounds eerily like you have a problem Matt; If you have a problem with me just say it."

"It's not a problem, because I know you. It's just that in the business we have to do things we don't want to and hell we've done some things that most spies won't even do. We've killed people, Joe. We've practically tortured people and I've been there every time and It's not like you enjoy it but it never looks like you care and it's always like you get something out of it."

"What I get out of it is information." Joe replied in a continuous flat tone – he was hurt and his constant paranoia over what sort of man he'd turned out to be because of being trained to be exactly what his own best friend was scared of was bleeding from the wound of having it finally brought up.

"You didn't when you killed Winters" Matt replied too quickly to have thought about what he was saying.

"Neither did you for Dubois" Joe countered with a fairly valid point even if he was referring to a life and death situation when the memory of cornering Winters had been between letting him escape and leak their mission to warn the rest of the circle or shooting. He hadn't thought twice.

"It was me or her, it's different like that." Matt voiced evenly; Joe's previous thoughts being facts that Matt knew.

"Has it crossed your mind that maybe that was the case for me?" Joe chose to ignore his observation and continue defending himself.

"You don't deny it Joe, it couldn't be like that completely but I trust you, it doesn't matter." Matt was sounding desperate to stop the argument getting too severe – he had just been worried about him and didn't mean that much by it. He'd not said anything to this effect for all the years he'd known Joe because he knew that it was the various tragedies of his life that made him that way in the first place.

"You trust me but that doesn't mean you think I'm a good person. Don't worry I get it, Blackthorne Institute, the Circle of Cavan. Not exactly a reliable career path!" Joe was clearly angry now, whether that was covering deeper hurt or not Matt didn't question too far because they both knew why he was the way he was.

"It's not like that!" Matt tried to dismiss but Joe picked up his pen again and pretended to refocus on marking as he concluded for the two of them how they were going to deal with ending what they'd started once and for all.

"Good; then you don't need to think of it like it then. We're both going to Italy without the CIA's approval, and we'll do what it takes to get rid of the circle for good whether we like each other's expressions as we do it or not."

Ooooooh, shirty! Please review, favorite and follow because then you might just get a new chapter ;)