She was standing in the hallway outside the Gallagher hospital wing, and the first thought Zach had was that she looked like a ghost.

She was pale and bruised, and her hair was short and rough and black, but it wasn't really that.

It wasn't even the marks that ran down her arms, the ones that told Zach exactly where she'd been, and who she'd been with.

Cammie had come back to him, but she'd come back as a shell. Something had put out the fire in her eyes, until only pain remained. Someone.

It was almost like staring in the mirror.

Zach heard himself say some words, but he didn't really think about them. He was perfectly capable of making polite conversation even when his mind was otherwise occupied.

He reached out to touch her, but he was afraid that she might break, so he stopped short, and only brushed the bottom of her hair.

"It's different," he heard himself mumble. "It's different now."

When she didn't crumble to dust before him, Zach wasn't quite sure what to do.

It was almost worse, seeing her like this, than if she had never returned. He instantly hated himself for the thought.

Cammie was home. Alive. And if anyone could understand the hell she'd been through, it was him.

Zach reached out for her, to pull her into his arms, to shield her against the cruelness of their world, the cruelness of his own Mother, but Ghost Cammie just stared through him, as though he wasn't even there.

"We're ready for you now," a voice called in the distance. It was Catherine, even though he knew that wasn't right. In his dreams, it was always Catherine.

Ghost Cammie turned away, and walked slowly in the other direction, rounding a corner and disappearing from his view.

Zach tried to follow her, but he could never run fast enough. No matter how hard he pushed onward, his legs moved painfully slowly. If he chased Cammie's receding figure long enough, he eventually turned another corner and came face to face with his mother.

"Hello, sweetheart," she smirked, oblivious to an unconscious Cammie, who lay crumpled at her feet. "Aren't you going to introduce your little girlfriend to your mother?"

Zach snapped awake, every muscle in his body tense, his hands clenched into fists at his sides. He unclenched his fingers, and found his phone without looking, in the same place it had been when he'd reached for it two hours earlier.

Mercifully, his dead letter email accounts were still empty.

Tomorrow would be a turning point in their operation. The first stage of a plan to bring the Doctors into US jurisdiction. Zach knew it would be dangerous; there was no way around that. At any moment, someone could recognize Zach and Grant as the spies they were, and they'd both find a fast route to a shallow grave.

Death was an occupational hazard Zach didn't allow himself to consider very often. Of course he'd killed people. And subconsciously, he knew it could always be him. But it was a thought he pushed down behind the adrenaline, burying reality in the speed of the moments of the life he lived.

Tonight it was different. Tonight he thought of Cammie, alone in their apartment, or lifting off in a government chopper, or running over a rooftop with a bunch of bad guys chasing her, and his chest ached.

If he died now, it would break her.

They had fought, and Zach had run, and if he didn't make it home to apologize, he knew he would never forgive himself. He knew Cammie would never forgive him.

It was entirely his fault anyway. He was overprotective. He did make bad decisions when they worked together. She had been right all along, and he should have just told her. He should have explained that his love for her had clouded his judgment.

Instead he'd left without saying goodbye, just as Cammie had so many years before. Even though he'd known it was wrong. Even though he'd known how badly it would hurt her. But fear and pain and uncertainty had overpowered him.

Zach wanted so badly to make it right. To take Cammie into his arms and tell her that he loved every part of her, even the crazy, ambitious spy parts. Even the parts that perpetually threatened to take her away from him.

The ache in his heart flooded through him, until he couldn't take it any longer. Zach slipped silently from his bed and into the streets. At a twenty-four hour drug store, he purchased a burner phone with bills he'd stolen from Grant's wallet. Zach punched in the emergency access number he'd memorized long ago, and sent a text message before he could stop himself.

Be safe.

Zach held onto the phone for a moment longer, knowing the risk he was facing with every passing second, praying, against all odds, that she was out there, missing him, in the same moment.

When the phone buzzed in his hand, twenty-two seconds later, Zach couldn't believe it. The number was blocked, and unlisted, but Zach didn't even question the source.

Be vigilant.

She was out there. Cammie was out there, and she was missing him too.

Zach's heart soared as he stomped on the pieces of the burner phone before tossing them off of the nearest bridge.

I'm coming home, he stared at the sky, willing his message across the globe to Cammie. I'm sorry, and I love you, and I'm coming home.