Author's Note and updating info at the end.
When I came back after the Circle had me, my mom took me into sublevel one to debrief. The Covert Operations classroom had been transformed then, and I looked around it wondering what war had caused my mother to go to measures that extreme. I hadn't understood that the war she had been fighting was on the inside, as much as on the outside—that she had been trying to come up with a strategy that, when everything was said and done, would at least bring her hope for tomorrow. Now, as I sit in the same room, surrounded by the same type of transformation, I finally know what she felt that summer.
I think it is a worse type of torture than what I experienced that summer, because this is agony. That was hell, but it wasn't this.
"Cammie, baby…." Mom's voice trails off as she places her hand on my shoulder. "Cammie," she restarts. "Cammie, this isn't your fault."
"Really?" I ask doubtfully. "Really, Mom? It was my watch. I fell asleep on my watch, and he was taken." My voice is sharp and angry now. I haven't heard it sound like this since, well… the last summer this room looked the way it does now.
"Cammie," Zach's tired voice cuts through my pain and makes me pause for a moment.
I look at him, see my emotions reflected in his eyes, quickly replaced by a steady determination that I have always loved about him. "Don't. Don't tell me this isn't my fault," I tell him quietly. "It was my watch Zach. I fell asleep during my watch."
"Gallagher Girl, neither of us had slept in three days. It was bound to happen at some point."
I stand up quickly and my chair falls to the floor with a bang. I want to yell, to scream, to fight, to run. I can't though. There is nowhere to go, no one to fight, and yelling or screaming will just waste time. Instead I take a deep breath. "It shouldn't have happened though, Zach. I shouldn't have fallen asleep. When have I ever fallen asleep during my watch? When have I ever fallen asleep during a mission if it wasn't 100% safe to do so?"
Zach sighs. "You haven't," he answers me finally.
"Exactly," I tell him forcefully. I can feel every pair of eyes in the room on me as I say the thing that has been running through my mind since Bex called a helicopter to a field near our house, and Grant pulled me and Zach onto it. "I never fall asleep," I say. "I never have in the past. So why did I this time?" Nobody answers me, but Joe Solomon's eyes do spark from the seat where he has been watching this all unfold. I shake my head, unable to stay in this room for another second. "I'm going to the gun range," I say. Then I turn and walk out the door.
The gun bucks in my hand as I empty the last bullet from it and into the target on the other end of the range. I press the button that sends the paper bull's-eye sailing towards me.
"I see you haven't lost your touch," a voice says from behind me.
"I've been pregnant, Joe," I say without turning around. "I haven't stopped training."
"How'd your OB feel about that?"
"She called the Director on me. Figures. I should have just gotten a civilian doctor who would have been none the wiser. Of course, I decided to go with the OB who would have access to my file, mission perimeters, and information about the number of hours I logged at the gym." I sigh, "I had to start training here instead of at headquarters so that she couldn't find out where my I.D. had been scanned."
Joe barks out a laugh. "You sound like your mother did when she had you. She and Matt made the same mistake."
"Bring the girl," a voice says. "Show her what happens to spies who don't talk." I freeze where I am, dropping the target on the floor, it's center riddled with bullet holes.
"Cammie, are you alright?" Joe sounds concerned. Why would he sound concerned? "Cammie?"
Joe's sharp tone snaps me out of the trance I've been held in for the past few seconds. "I'm okay," I tell him. "I'm fine."
"Then why are you shaking your head like you're trying to make something leave it?"
I pause as I realize that I was, indeed, shaking my head. I hadn't even noticed. "Well, Joe, sometimes I need to make a little room," I snap. "And it's not like I don't have things I'd like to forget." Like torture. Like my father's unmarked, unvisited, unjustified grave on a mountain in Austria. Like the fact that my little baby boy has been taken by a terrorist cell that was after me. Me.
"We all have things we'd like to forget, Cammie," Joe tells me.
I finally turn around, glaring at him as I do so. "What do you want, Joe?" I ask him. I want to sound in control, or angry, or sad, or happy. I don't even care what I sound like. But all I can muster up is exhaustion. "What do you want?" I repeat.
"Cammie, you can't blame yourself for this," Joe tells me. "It isn't your fault."
"Really?"
"Really."
"Don't lie to me, Joe."
He sighs. "I taught you better than this, Cam. We all taught you better than this. You don't have time to toss blame around right now. You need to pull yourself together and…."
BANG.
BANG. BANG. BANG.
"Was that…?" I ask.
"Yeah," he responds.
I stare at him. "What's the first rule of running, Joe?" I ask. I don't wait for him to answer though, only pick up my gun from the table where it lies and insert a new clip. "The first rule of running," I whisper, "is to never go anyplace familiar."
A/N: As promised, updating schedule. I apologize, but it will probably be pretty chaotic. From July 17th to August 5th, I will be in Kenya doing volunteer work with Me to We. I will be in the Maasai Mara region which is largely tribal land, so I will not be able to update as I will not have access to either electricity or internet for the time I am there. However, beyond that I will do my best to maintain a weekly updating regime. That said, I will be spending quite a bit of time at my cottage (which has no internet access) and camping (during which I will have internet access only sometimes). Once school starts up again in September though, I will be able to update weekly with relative consistency. Stick with me through the summer though. I'll do my best.
Now then, as we are thorough with that, hi! I'm You-Just-Might and yes, I am back. How are you? It's been a while, hasn't it? Yes, it has been. Sorry about that. Well, I hoped you enjoyed that chapter. It's been a long time coming. Well, please do review to let me know what you think. I'll have the next chapter up before I leave for Kenya, and if you are lucky, I'll be able to get the next two chapter's up.
Until next time,
You-Just-Might
Crazy-for-Goode: Thank-you for the review. I am sorry I kept you in the dark for so long, stuff came up. Also, for my English mark I had to write a novel, so I was kind of dried out creatively.
Covert Affairs Intelligence: Too long. I'm sorry!
Guest: Thank-you for the compliment. Also for reminding em that I had killed off Liz. I changed it so that the chapter said Grant instead fo Liz. Sorry about that, it must have slipped my mind.
GGFanaticForevah: I am going to write more! I promise!
Guest: Hi, guest. You reviewed a few days ago. Thanks for that. I had honestly kind of forgotten that I wanted to continue with this story, but your review sparked my memory. I went back, re-read what I had already written, and reviewed my plot outline. I hope you liked what I came up with and I'm sorry it took so long.