Here's the final chapter! to the guest who reviewed and was confused about Zach being shocked about seeing Cammie's skin in the last chapter, up until the last chapter she had been bandaged up like completely so he had no way of seeing the damage the explosion did. Hope you guys liked this little short story. I have finals this week then i'm off to summer! so that means that i'll be updating my other stories soon :) If this story gets good reviews then i might do a sequel about the trial but i'm on the wall about it. So anyways... Read. Enjoy. Review :)
Cammie stayed in the hospital for another two weeks. By then, the rest of her burns had healed and the doctors cleared her for leave. Reluctantly, she had let me keep seeing her. When I did visit we didn't talk. I sat there with her hand in mine flipping aimlessly through the channels on the T.V. I hadn't brought up the topic of her coming home with me again. The day the doctors came in to tell her she could leave her face blanched. She looked on the verge of puking and a couple minutes after the doctor left, she did… all over me.
She asked me to go back the house and bring back a sweatshirt, sweatpants and sunglasses. I brought back the sweats and sweatshirt but not the sunglasses. I knew what she was doing; she was trying to cover-up all of her scars so that no one would notice them. She thought herself hideous and a monster, but I never wanted her to feel like that. I want her to be the person she was: confident, caring, beautiful and loving. She'll never regain what she lost if she hid.
When I returned to the hospital half an hour later, Cammie was gone. She wasn't in her room and I when I checked the front desk. They said that she had checked out with a man about ten minutes ago. Cursing to myself, I chucked the clothes away from me and ran into my car. I peeled out of the parking lot with a screech and sped down the surface streets. I ran several red lights and at one point I could hear a police siren sounding in the background. I flashed a badge in the mirror of my car and he backed off.
I searched the streets for hours searching for her before I came to the conclusion that she wasn't on the streets. Driving back to the hospital I found several hotels lined up a couple miles away. Parking my car I decided to check a couple to see if she had checked into any of them wanting to avoid going home with me. There were three options for me to check: a Hyatt, Marriott and a Holiday Inn. The Hyatt and Marriott were bustling with people, a chameleon's dream. But Cammie wasn't the chameleon anymore. She couldn't blend in with any crowd. Now, she would stick out like a sore thumb. Fewer people went into the Holiday Inn so I decided to check there.
The concierge was a young girl probably no older than twenty-five. She chomped loudly on her bubble gum and mindlessly twirled a strand of hair. Once I approached the desk though, she stood up straighter. She looked me up and down once and after giving some deliberation, decided I wasn't worth her time. Partially offended, I checked one of the mirrors in the lobby. My hair was looking better now that I had turned to washing it regularly. I had put on some weight in muscle because once Cammie woke up and I was able to see her regularly, my stress levels went down slightly. I was looking better than I did before, but not as good as I could have. Still, I knew I was hot and she should too.
"Hello Ms." I said approaching the desk. "I was parking our car and my wife said she'd come check us in. She wasn't feeling well though and called to tell me she was going up to our room, but she didn't tell me the room and my phone died. Can you tell me the room number? She has a bit of a…" I couldn't find the word to describe Cammie without leading the front desk girl to conclusions she shouldn't draw. "…condition. The last name is McBaxon." McBaxon was Liz, Bex, Macey and Cammie's well-known alter ego last name. It was a combination of all their last names: Macey's Mc-, Bex's -bax, and Liz and Cammie's -on.
"I'm sorry sir." The girl said in return. "There is no one at this hotel with that name." I knew she was lying though. I could see the computer screen with the reflection of her gold nametag. I was able to make out the room 214. I apologized and she rolled her eyes. She went back to toying with her hair. I managed to sneak over to the elevators without her noticing. Quickly, I pressed the number for the second floor.
It took me less than five minutes to arrive at Cammie's door. It was locked and I could hear a shower running. I highly doubted she was actually in the shower though. Knocking on the door I waited for her to answer. When she didn't I got out my lock picks and began to go at the door.
"Just stop!" She said flinging the door open. "You don't have to break in. I was actually showering." Her hair was dripping wet and she had a towel tightly wrapped around her body. Her chest had been haphazardly rewrapped and her mouth was turned back into the permanent scowl that had seemed to dress it lately.
"Why did you run away?" I asked furious while storming inside.
"Oh do come in." She replied furiously. "You don't control me Zach." She added in return.
"No. I don't. But," I said glaring, "I am your husband and you owe it to me not to run off god damn it!"
"Why do you even care?" She barked again. She quickly pulled a shirt and shorts over her toweled body and threw her hair up in a bun.
"Why do I?" I stuttered out. "I care because I'm your husband and I love you." I said. For the first time since she left for her mission and almost didn't come back, I hugged my wife. I hugged Cammie and I didn't plan on ever letting her go. At first she gasped and let her arms limply hang at her sides. She was so fragile. I felt if I squeezed her at all she'd snap in half. I don't ever remember her being this fragile. I leaned my cheek on her bald head and I felt her begin to sob into my shirt. Not long after did I feel her arms wrap around me and pull me closer.
"You can't just go off and not tell anyone where you're going. Don't you remember at Gallagher when you did that and came back at the end of the summer with no memory? Do you know how much that tore me apart? I was devastated Cameron. I went crazy and I didn't know what to do with myself. When you got hurt in that explosion I was no better. God damn it Cammie. You can't keep running off like this. I love you and you need to get it through that damned thick head of yours."
"How can you? How can you love me Zach?" She cried. "You deserve better than me. You deserve someone who can make you happy. Someone who can protect you and care for you and fulfill the vows I made but I know I can't keep now. Someone who loves you unconditionally and will lay down their life for you. Zach I can't give you that anymore. I will die for you every minute of every day, but unconditionally love you? I- I just don't know if I can do that anymore.
"I can't wake up every day knowing that you're going to be risking your life on missions with backup that I don't know. That each time I see you might be the last. I can't protect you. Zach, espionage is my life and because of this-this 'accident' I'll never be able to go back to it. You'll be able to keep doing the life you were trained to do. Go back to the life you love, but Zach, I can never go back. I can be behind the scenes but that would kill me. I'm a field agent. I'm meant to be out there. Fighting for those who can't and protecting the country we love. The way I looked was what allowed me to do that. And now. I'm too hideous to even walk two feet without every pair of eyes for the next three blocks on me. I'll never be able to look at you without feeling envy or jealousy that you can keep on doing your job. I need to be there in the field. I can never be a housewife. I'm a Gallagher Girl. This is what I'm trained to do. This is what I'm trained to live for.
"Now, I draw too much attention to myself. Do you think that I can ever have kids now? If I did when they ask my why their mommy doesn't look like other ones? Why I'm scarred the way I am, what would I tell them? How would I be able to deal with my child looking at me and crying in my arms because of my hideousness? I never could. Everything I've ever wanted in my life: you, kids, my career are all over. Zach, you deserve someone who can give you all those things. You deserve someone who doesn't scare children or themselves every time they look in the mirror. And…that person just isn't me. You can't love me Zach, because you deserve so much better."
"Cammie." I said. Breaking away from me, she sat down on the hotel bed and sobbed into her hands. I sat down next to her and rubbed her back. " I want to tell you a story." She continued to cry into her hands so I lied her down on my lap, grabbed her hands and began rubbing them with my thumbs. "So one day there was this boy. Now, he wasn't your average boy. Sure he had dashing good looks, and incredible physique and enough bravado for an entire all boys' private high school, but he was missing one thing. He lacked the ability to care.
"Now as a child, this boy had been taught by his mom that should he ever care about anything, he would fail. He learned to shut out emotions and cover them with arrogance. Then one day at school, he got assigned a project." Cammie reverted to sniffling as she realized what story I was telling. "He had to follow this girl around a mall. Now most people would think this was a stupid task, following a girl around mall while she gabbed with her girlfriends, but the boy was intrigued. He got a picture of the girl. She didn't really look like much at first sight. Most of the other boys had gotten exotic type girls with model looks, but the boy could have cared less. There was something about the girl that he got that made him think. He could see it in her eyes from the picture that this wasn't some ordinary girl. She was cunning, crafty, and capable. When the time came for the project to begin, he found the girl with ease the first time." Cammie smacked my chest while sniffling. I smirked a little at this and returned to the story.
"So he found her with ease the first time but lost her seconds later. If it hadn't been for her friend he probably never would have found her again. So the day went on with them playing hide and seek for hours until he finally found her again. She was waiting for an elevator so the boy decided he'd take the elevator as well. They were going to the same place anyways. So he got in with her. While in the elevator, he decided to talk to her. He offered her M&Ms and she made snarky comments about being late. The boy pointed out she didn't know the time because she didn't have a watch but she covered herself quickly. The boy was beyond impressed. From the first second he heard her voice, he knew what it was about the girl that intrigued him: everything. He didn't want to stop hearing her speak, hearing her snap at him, and later on he would find, hearing her laugh. He hated the sound of her crying and he couldn't stand the thought of harm coming to her.
"So the day he decided to introduce him to his mother…. well… needless to say things could have gone better. She almost died and the boy was well…he was destroyed. The day he went back to school and found out she was slightly scathed but mostly unharmed was the happiest day of his life. One day, he stupidly decided to give her his jacket, which by the way she never returned." I felt Cammie stir and I looked down to see that she had her eyes closed as she listened to the story. I was about to stop assuming she was asleep but she whispered. "No. Keep telling the story. I want to know what happens to the boy and girl." I gave a laugh and rubbed her arm.
"Well the boy and the girl eventually escaped the boy's mother completely. They got the police and they put the boy's mother away for a long time. About a month later after they put the boy's mother in jail, they found out all the things that she did. The boy was devastated. For months he didn't talk to the girl. He broke up with her believing that she deserved someone better than him. He believed that he had done too much wrong to be right for her. She was an angle and he was the son of the devil. Eventually, she showed up at his apartment one day and slapped him so hard that he passed out." Cammie laughed remembering this.
"That was the day the boy realized that he loved her. Once he regained consciousness he rushed over to the girl's apartment, knocked on the door, and when she answered the door, he grabbed her and kissed her as hard as he could. When they broke away, he got down on one knee and told her 'I don't have a ring and I don't have a lot to offer you. I can't say I'll always be by your side because I won't always be. I can't promise you I'll always be safe because that's just not the life that was chosen for me. What I can promise you though is that I love you. I will love you if you are here or if you are gone. I will love you if you are beautiful or ugly. I will love you if you can give me everything or nothing. I will love you unconditionally, unreasonably forever. And if you think that I am good enough for you, then you'll say you'll let me do that. You'll say that you'll be mine. You'll say you'll marry me.' He then pulled out a piece of string that he had tied in a loop from his pocket and slipped it onto her finger. The girl never actually said yes but he got the point.
"They were married for a couple of years. In that time, they had experienced every single obstacle possible for a happily married couple: miscarriage, cheating rumors, death, the whole chibang. But, a couple years after their wedding, the girl had to go away for work. She was gone for months and he boy, now a man, began to worry. She wrote to him sometimes, but in recent times, he hadn't heard from her. Five months after she left, the boy got a call from his boss and they said there had been an accident. They said his wife was in a serious accident and was in the hospital. Before his boss had even hung up, he boy was on his way to the hospital. In hindsight, I wasn't a good idea for the boy to be driving in the condition he was in, but at the time, that wasn't important. When he got to the hospital, the doctors told him what had happened and the diagnosis was. He was heartbroken. More than once the doctors asked him if he wanted to pull the plug. Every time he resisted. He knew that having here, even though it was selfish and cruel, was more important than being the one to kill her. They all said she probably wouldn't make it and more than once the man found himself in their apartment that they shared with a gun in his lap. But, every time he talked himself out of it telling himself that one day, she'd wake up. One day they'd be together again and everything would be okay.
"And one day, everything was better. His friends had convinced him to go home because he wasn't sleeping or eating or drinking or crying or doing anything. He didn't have anything left in him to do. The year that she was gone was like he was too. As she withered away in her hospital bed, he withered away for the world to see. But that one day, he got the call that she woke up. They said she woke up and she was okay. Again, before he could even hear the dial tone of the phone, he was already in the car on his way to the hospital. When he burst through the front doors, the nurses recognized him. They pushed him out the door and told him he was not permitted in the hospital to see his wife. That broke him. He turned to drinking and every night he got wasted beyond his wildest imagination and got into bar fight and nearly killed himself. One night, he had a dream though. In the dream, he heard the beep of his wife's heart monitor flat line. At that moment, he knew he had to see her." Cammie was still quiet knowing what happened to man next.
"The next day he snuck into the hospital. After a convoluted plan of stolen I.D.s and back entrances the man managed to find his wife. When he finally got to her. She screamed at him to leave and even yelled for security to come. He was removed and taken in for questioning. In a week, he is to be tried for treason against the state for breaking into the hospital." Cammie gasped at this fact and began to silently cry again.
"But the man did get to see his wife one more time. His dad was able to convince the wife to let the man see her. When he got to see her. He won't lie, he was shocked." I felt Cammie begin to get up but I held her against me. "He was shocked at how alive she looked. How beautiful and alive she was. She was alive. He had never been so grateful for anything in his life. She told him that she was hideous and then when he asked her to come home, she said she didn't know what home was anymore."
"A couple weeks later, the man asked the woman to come home with him again which she relied with throwing up on him. When he came back from going home to change and get clothes for the girl, he found out the girl had ran off. He spent the next two hours driving around the city looking for her. When he finally found her, after fending off star-struck front desk girls, she gave him a very long stupid speech about how she wasn't good enough for him.
"Now let me tell you now, if anyone isn't good enough for someone Cammie, it's me. I'm not good enough for you. When you first met me I was the son of a terrorist. I had killed people in cold blood and I had ruined families. I forced children to watch as I tortured their parents and then killed them. I had done horrible things but you looked past those things. I may be beautiful on the outside but I was scarred on the inside. I've done things that I'm not proud of. I may still look like a decent person on the outside, but if you were ever to look into what I've done I'd be the most hideous person on the face of this plant. Cammie. You are beautiful in the only way that matters to me. You're a beautiful person, and every time I look at you I see the beautiful person I fell in love with that day in the elevator. They say that love is forever." I began to sing, "You're forever is all that I need. Please stay as long as you need. I can't promise that things won't be broken but I swear that I will never leave. Please stay with me." Cammie began to cry as I finished the song we danced to at our wedding
"Please stay forever with me."