Forever and Always

Chapter 12: The Recognizing

I stood there frozen, Zach's arm around my shoulder, waiting for our limousine and I realized that I wasn't staring at our chauffeur. I was staring at someone waiting for a vehicle and every now and then he looked up the street impatiently and then glanced at his Spiderman watch.

That did it. Spiderman watch? I looked at the persons face and thick black hair, a large nose, and the overall face of someone in their mid-twenties. I stripped away the cover piece by piece and finally saw who it was. Preston. The current first-son of America. Wearing a disguise. With no back-up in sight.

"Zach," I muttered. He nodded. He had noticed too.

"It's nothing Cammie, first son of America in Dreux in disguise, there could be dozens of explanations," he muttered back.

"You expect me to believe that?" I asked incredulously.

"Of course not, but I had to give it a shot," he said, shrugging. "But I do expect you to trust me when I say that it's none of our business, Gallagher Girl." He said it but I knew he didn't believe it. "We're going to be good little spies in training and let the adults handle it."

The limousine chose that moment to show up around the curb and our luggage to be rolled into sight. And before I could say anything, our luggage was in the trunk and Zach was beside me at the back of the limo. He could see that the fact was still nagging me so he said, "Cammie, I've told the school, juts drop it."

"Sure Blackthorne Boy, because we spies are so good at dropping it." He laughed. I could hear Abby's voice no, Another reason why we shouldn't have put you together. You two are so annoyingly persistent. Biggest mistake of our lives.

"But still, Gallagher Girl, drop it." He turned on the radio at this, and I pulled my laptop out. I thought about emailing Bex, Liz and Macey about Preston but decided not to.

When we were halfway there, I saw Zach's eyes widen and I pulled an earphone out of my ear as he reached for the volume control on the radio, and it blared, "Preston Winters, first son of America, missing. Authorities are trying to connect this incident with the attacks on Macey McHenry a few months ago. As Abigail Cameron, part of the US Secret Service stated this morning…" I wanted to hear the rest but at that moment I felt something vibrate in my pocket. Zach's phone. I pulled it out and saw my mother's number. The next moment, Zach was talking into it, on speaker, the radio turned off.

"So, Zach, you just contacted Joe saying you and Cammie saw Preston Winters outside the airport. In Dreux and in disguise?"

"Yeah, we did, do we get to know what he was doing there?" Zach asked, but somehow, I knew he knew more than he was letting on.

"He ran away, apparently," my mom said and she suddenly seemed very tired. "We have to contact the CIA now, just do us a favor and keep your eyes open. Take care."

Zach murmured his consent into the phone before shutting it off. "So much for being good little spies in training." He muttered and I smiled. Somehow, I couldn't help but wonder why we were always in the midst of it. And then it hit me. We were in DREUX. Which is supposed to be a small city in France. In Europe. And so was the first son of America? There had to be a connection. Where was Liz's genius mind when you needed it?

"Zach, how…" But Zach was already nodding. What was with him knowing exactly what I was thinking today? "Someone knows," was all he let on. Great. Real informative. I rolled my eyes, causing him to smirk and pulled my iPod out. I listened to New Divide by Linkin Park and absentmindedly pulled at my pendant. All of this was getting tiring. All of it.

We got to our hotel at 12:00, just in time for lunch on the fourth floor. Our suite was huge. The rooms were sizes of two master bedrooms, along with bathrooms that Macey would approve of and a large living space. There were two rooms, Zach and I could use them ourselves before the others got there and then there would be one for the girls and one for the boys. We watched TV until dinner like… normal teenagers. Dinner was five star foods that I was so used to eating, and I felt like trying something different. Zach agreed and we walked into town to grab cheeseburgers.

"Still wondering about Preston?" he asked on the way back.

"Kind of. But living with Macey… you realize how hard their lives are. I never imagined he would run away though." Personally, I knew that Macey and Preston weren't so different from me. I knew that if I were Gallagher and not roaming around the world, I would seriously be considering running away what with having the Circle after me. As usual, Zach saw through my words.

"Yes you did, and you would wish to do the same thing if…"

"If?" I asked, suddenly more interested.

"If you weren't in France with me," he finished, playfully poking me. Which caused me to not-so-playfully punch him on the arm. He winced but put his arm around me none-the-less. We stuck to our covers all the way back to the hotel room, which wasn't so hard.

"Goodnight Gallagher Girl," he said, grabbing his carry-on and waiting for my reply before kissing me on the cheek and walking into his room. I changed and brushed absentmindedly before throwing myself onto one of the beds.

Not even half the journey to our real destination was over and I was already tired of it. And my thoughts wandered from the Circle, to the attack on the school, to the jet, and then to Preston. Why does everything have to happen all at once?

A/N: How was it? I had you there didn't I? Most of you thought it was the Circle, which it was going to be, but I changed my plans ten minutes ago. Also, the Circle was too predictable. And I also noticed that there weren't any blue eyes in Boston (OMZ) but hey, I posted the chapter in a hurry. Does Preston have blue eyes? Wow… Anyway, I nearly forgot to post this chapter, mostly because I'm on a different time zone right now and most of my readers are in North America and they're reviewing when I'm sleeping and I'm updating when they're sleeping. How lucky. Ok, now I'm going to end this long and pointless author's note so you people can review. And I can stay up late waiting for them. And write the one shot I've been planning. Review Please!

-Sami