Summary: Sometimes, days are just crappy. Sometimes there's nothing you can do about it. Sometimes nothing goes right. But friends always make everything better.

Disclaimer: I don't own Gallagher Girls or the characters.

Picture Perfect

Cameron Morgan/Zachary Goode

Friendship/Romance

One-shot

You know those times when it seems like the day will never end? It's just so horrible that it doesn't even seem real. It starts when the alarm clock rings, or, more often, when it doesn't or the snooze button is hit too many times. Then the shower has to be quicker, and rushing around the apartment is tiring and often uncomfortable when the feeling of almost, but not quite, sweating starts. Getting out the door is then a struggle and all that can possibly make the morning better is coffee. But, of course, the coffee from Starbucks isn't warm enough and it gets thrown away before half of it is gone along with half the cash in your wallet that was used to tip the horrible drink maker. Being thankful for the coffee you gave him 20 dollars and told him to keep the change; the only comforting thought is that maybe he now feels guilty for the awful coffee. The rest of the day isn't any better. The Late Curse has already set in and being on time for anything is no longer an option.

Meetings, deadlines for paperwork, cracking a simple encryption, even getting your boss on the phone with the FBI. Nothing can be on time. When the workday finally ends the curling up on the couch and watching a movie seems like the perfect cure but no friends ever let that happen and instead plan a party after work in the back of everyone's pick-up trucks. And as awful as the day started, nothing beats the simple memories that always come when hanging out with friends in the back of a pick-up truck listening to blasting country music.

October is a great month in Washington DC. The tourists that were there for the summer have all left, the trees that line the streets are beautiful, the temperature is the perfect for work clothes and lounging clothes, and, best of all, it is right before elections so all the politicians are campaigning in areas that aren't DC. Cammie woke up Friday morning at 7 O'clock. Well, actually, she woke up at 6:30 when her alarm started beeping but she decided she could spare an extra five minutes and hit the snooze button. Unfortunately, she forgot that she had switched her snooze settings to ten minutes instead of five which gave her enough time to fall fast asleep again. And when the clock beeped again she did the same thing, too tired to look at the clock and not conscious enough to realize she had already hit the snooze button. It happened again at 6:50 and once more at 7:00. She would probably have gone through the same routine for a fourth time if it weren't for the sun that was now peaking through her blinds. Still, she wasn't a morning person and decided to ignore the nagging voice in her head that said it was too bright for 6:30. Less than a minute after she decided to ignore the sun her phone rang and she stuck her arm out from under her blue and white fluffy duvet cover to answer it.

"'ello," she said groggily.

"Cam!" Liz exclaimed, way to loudly in Cameron's opinion. "Thank Goodness, I am having a major crisis here."

"How can you have a crisis before I wake up?"

"Before you…YOU'RE NOT UP? You have to be here in an hour! How can you not be up?"

"What are you talking about Liz? I don't have to be at work until 8:15 and it's only…SHIT!" She yelled, snapping her phone shut on Liz as she re-read her pink alarm clock with 7:03 printed clearly in block numbers. "Why, oh why do you hate me?" she asked the alarm clock as she threw back her covers, slipped her recently manicured purple toes into her fluffy green slippers, and threw on her pink bathrobe that clashed completely with her white pajama pants that were covered in large polka dots with every color except the light pink of her bathrobe. Her brown hair was a tangled mess from falling into bed without brushing her hair the night before. She padded across her flat quickly and stepped down into her kitchen/living room area where she cut a bagel and put it in the toaster before running around and quickly packing a bag filled with workout clothes, money, regular clothes, her cell phone and the pile of folders she had taken home without permission the night before. Hey, they didn't contain any classified information. Well, technically they did but it was the same information that had been leaked over the internet two days before, she was just trying to figure out what footprints the leaker left.

When she went back into the kitchen it was 7:18 and quickly popped her bagel up only to find that it had burned charcoal.

"Ouch!" she exclaimed sucking on the finger the bagel had just burned. Glancing frantically at the clock she reached in the drawer for a knife and pulled the burnt bagel out of the toaster, tossing it quickly into the trashcan beside two feet away. Of course she missed and burnt bagel crumbs covered the floor. Not having time to make another bagel she ignored the mess and went into the bathroom to take a shower and de-tangle her rats nest hair. It was 7:42 when she got out. She towel dried her hair as best she could before turning on the blow dryer on full blast. Five minutes later her hair was still damp but she decided to break one of her rules and get into her work clothes before finishing the job in a desperate attempt to let it dry on it's own a little more. It was a pointless attempt and she spent another five minutes to get just the top part dry. She pulled on her black two-inch heels and tossed her flip-flops into her extra bag as well. The bottom half of her hair was still at the uncomfortable faze between wet and dry and she moved it over her shoulder before swinging it right back, realizing that it would leave a water stain on her light pink silk blouse. She threw her bag over her shoulder and ran towards the front door, stopping when she saw the crumbled mess that was supposed to have been her breakfast. The clock read 7:59 so she grabbed her dustpan and hand-broom and swept it up quickly before running out of her room. She was back ten seconds later after realizing that she had left her wallet (which had her Langley ID in it) in her metal, flame and water resistant safe.

Her stomach grumbled in protest as she stood up again, wallet in one hand, bag in the other, and closed the safe, placing her blue pillow back over it. She ignored her stomach and ran into the street, hailing a cab on her third attempt. She gave them the usual address, three blocks away from Langley, and ran into the Starbucks three feet away when he dropped her off. She was cutting it close but still had three minutes before she had to be at headquarters. The line wasn't long and she got her drink with one minute to spare. She knew she would be late but as long as she was there before 8:20 no one would give her much grief. Except maybe Cal who enjoyed giving everyone grief. She threw a twenty dollar bill on the counter and told the guy who had made her drink to keep the change as she dashed out the door. She walked quickly (or as quickly as you can in heels) down the street and gagged on her first sip of coffee. It tasted worse than ice coffee, and she hated ice coffee. She swallowed it with a grimace and forced herself to take two more sips, hoping it would grow on her. Of course it didn't and she threw it away in the first trashcan she passed, mentally cursing the guy she had tipped so generously.

She rushed into the Korean briefing at 7:22 and Cal clucked disapprovingly at her as she glared at him. If it had been anyone but Cal, who never, ever got nervous or scared or took a hint for when to not say anything, they would have backed off. But it was Cal so of course he didn't care.

"Close the door and take your seats," the mission director said as she stepped inside the meeting room 2.01 seconds after Cammie.

As soon as the meeting was dismissed Cam rushed back to her desk to finish analyzing the paperwork she had brought back from work the night before. She had been planning on doing it during breakfast but that hadn't worked out.

"Oh, Cam good. Where's your analysis on the leaks?" Bex asked five minutes after Cam had started working on it. "Peter needs it two minutes ago."

"I'm almost done," Cammie said, typing furiously as she fixed a few of her grammatical errors. "Stall him for a minute?" she begged, looking up quickly to give her friend the best pleading look she could manage.

Bex had done her best but Cammie still showed up a few seconds late and received a semi-good natured glare from Peter as he took the documents from her. It was 2 O'clock by the time she finished with the second set of documents Peter had for her and Cammie was famished. She didn't get a chance to have lunch thanks to a request for her sent by Liz whose 'crisis' turned out to be an encryption that Cam had broken before. It wasn't hard to break but it required two people. Why she couldn't use some one from the basement Cam didn't know but she didn't feel right leaving her out to dry so she took Reese's Peanut Butter Cup from her desk and went to help Liz. Two things went wrong in the basement. The first was her hunger. The candy bar should have helped her hunger but instead it made all of the hunger that had slowly been diminishing throughout the day comeback twice as bad as before. The second was that Cam had hit send a split second later than Liz and almost blew the system. Luckily, Liz was able to salvage it and they managed to break into the system…two and a half hours later. By then, Cam was ready to go home and eat. Her boss, however, had different ideas.

"Morgan!" he barked at her. "Get me the FBI…NOW!" Cam didn't even bother groaning as she threw her work jacket back over her desk chair and sat down. Her boss's secretary had been given the week off to see her sister in Wyoming who had just had a baby boy. Cam liked the secretary well enough and the whole office had been happy for her when the agency approved her vacation but now they all wanted her back three days ago. Without her, Boss Man had gone crazier than usual and the whole office was suffering with her departure, even if it was only for six days.

Getting the FBI on the phone probably doesn't sound like a big deal; after all spies and FBI agents probably work together a lot, right? Wrong. FBI agents, like most politicians, don't like spies much. FBI and Langley have a mutual distaste for the other. The FBI thinks spies are law-breaking criminals who are willing to go to any lengths to get answers and Langley thinks the FBI is a law-abiding goody-two shoes agency who never gets anything done because they're worried about rubbing people the wrong way and making a few enemies. Of course these are generalizations but the one time an active spy and an active FBI agent married it ended six months later (three of which were their honeymoon) with a broken frying pan and a whole in the wall. They never spoke to each other again and were a lesson for all future generations. Or so the rumors say.

And so getting the FBI head on the phone to speak to her boss caused Cammie great difficulty. Usually she was pretty good with people but her boss's secretary was 100 times better and Cammie just couldn't live up to her. Her boss stuck his head out the door twice to see if she had them yet and both times she shook her head, causing him to glare at her disapprovingly. She finally got the head on the phone at 5:03 and called out to her boss who said he didn't want to talk to him anymore. Cam grimaced, but didn't question, her boss's response. She uncovered the mouth piece and delivered his message.

"Hello? Hello?" She was met only by the dial tone. With a sigh she hung up and closed her eyes for a minute, listening only to the footsteps making their way towards her.

"Not now Zach," she said, holding her hand up to stop him from saying anything. He didn't question how she knew it was him without turning around.

"Rough day?" he asked instead, resting his chin on his arms that were crossed over the top of her cubicle.

"You have no idea," she muttered putting the phone away and shutting down her computer. "All I want to do is get home and curl up in a blanket with popcorn, pizza, and Dirty Dancing. Wait, that came out wrong," she said, frowning as Zach smirked at her.

"Well, as much as I'd love to see that, and really, you should totally—OW! Never mind. We're going out of the city, you should come."

"I don't—" Cammie started but was cut off half way through declining.

"Cam, are you coming?" Macey asked walking up beside Zach.

"Actually, I'm—"

"Great, we're leaving at five thirty. Get changed, Peter's buying the beer."

"But I—"

"Don't be a party-pooper. Besides, Liz's not boyfriend is going to be there. Watching them will totally cheer you up. Word travels fast," she said defensively. "Late alarm clock from Liz, bad coffee and late to the meeting from Cal, messed up paperwork from Bex, encryption screw-up from Liz, and FBI call from Zach. I know your day down to the second. Now get ready. Not coming isn't an option."

"Hey look, the Big Dipper," Cam said as she sat in the back of Peter's truck. They were about twenty minutes out of the city, in a clearing in the woods off some back roads that Peter had taken when he was trying to avoid getting a ticket three years over.

"That's the Little Dipper. See, the star at the edge of the handle is to light to be the Big Dipper," Macey contradicted as she took another swig of beer.

"It has nothing to do with how bright the star is," Zach said. "It's about which way the handle is facing. The little dipper's handle is always to the East."

"No it's not it's to the South," Bex told him.

"No that's the Big Dipper," Zach told her.

"No, the Big Dipper uses the North Star, its handle is to the North," Cam argued.

"You guys are all stupid," Cal said. "That's not any of the three dippers. It's clearly Cassiopeia." No one in the truck said anything as they stared at him blankly. "What?" he asked. Macey shook her head at him, Bex burst out laughing, and Cam looked up at Zach as they shared an amused look.

"He's your best friend," she told him. Zach held his hands up in surrender but didn't say anything.

"Hey, look!" Bex exclaimed, pointing at Liz.

"Aw," Cam cooed.

"That's so cute," Macey agreed. Zach shrugged, seemingly unaffected.

"How is lying down in grass cute?" Cal asked, catching sight of Liz and her non-boyfriend lying down in the soft grass staring up at the stars, holding hands. "He could at least make a move. We're in the woods, under the stars, and Liz is an insane romanticist. If he played his cards right he wouldn't have to spend the night alone."

"As much as it pains me to admit this, he does have a point," Macey said thoughtfully. "I wonder if he's gay…"

"Okay, just because a guy doesn't try to get into the pants of a girl he hasn't even gotten up the nerve to ask out yet, doesn't mean he's gay," Cammie defended them.

"Uh, yeah it does," Cal said.

"Yeah, there's a good chance he is," Zach agreed, ignoring Cam's glare.

"I did see him eyeing McDonald the other day…" Bex said, trailing off thoughtfully.

"I can't believe you!" Cam exclaimed. "Well, actually I can believe you two," she amended indicating Zach and Cal. "But not you two! What happened to the 'they're so cute' of two minutes ago?" Bex and Macey were quiet for a minute.

"Cal ruined it," Macey decided. Cal looked at her indignantly.

"I did not!" he defended. "You were the one who said he might be gay."

"Yeah, but I wouldn't have if you hadn't pointed out that he wasn't making a move."

"Maybe not but I just said it wasn't cute because of it. You took it to a whole…"

Cam shook her head and let her friends' conversation fade into the background as she gazed out into the clearing that was filled with various amounts of light from all the flashlights they had brought with them. The clearing was big and perfectly circular like a crop circle. There were five car loads of people as well; Peters pickup truck, two five seaters, one eight seater, and one red old fashioned two seater. All the cars were on, some all the way, some only with the battery, and each of the radios was blasting WMZQ which had just returned from commercial.

"An old one from Martina McBride, 'Anyway'," the DJ said before putting the song on. The clearing was full of around 30 people. Most were coupled up or in smaller groups, chilling in the grass or on the hood of the cars, stargazing and talking quietly. A few were play wrestling and dancing in the middle of the circle, enjoying the fresh air and relative darkness that you rarely found in the city unless there was a huge power-outage and all the generators failed.

"What are you thinking about," Zach said quietly kissing the top of her head lightly as their friends continued to bicker. Bex had joined in after Cal randomly accused her of ruining the moment.

"Patrick Swayze," she said absentmindedly, still staring out into the clearing. "And how if you hadn't dragged me out here I would be watching his dance scenes over and over again until my DVD player got to hot and started skipping."

"Ah, but this is so much better," Zach said, grinning down at her. "If you hadn't come you would have missed Cal's brilliant constellation lesson, Liz's possible gay non-boyfriend, and, let's face it, me looking way hotter than Patrick Swayze ever could."

"I think 70% of the girls on Earth would disagree with your last statement and 25% are insane so you can't really trust their opinion anyways," Cam said but she was smiling to.

"Well, you're never part of the majority so I don't really care," Zach told her as he kissed her gently on her lips. Cam turned over with the blanket still wrapped around her body and kissed him harder.

"Oi! We already know you're not gay, Zach. You don't need to prove it to us by getting down and dirty in Peter's truck. I don't think he'd appreciate it," Macey said, tossing her beer bottle cap at them gently so that it hit Zach's shoulder.

"I know he wouldn't," Peter piped up as he came back over to his truck and pulled himself onto the back.

"I BLAME ZACH!" Cal yelled at the top of his lungs. Everyone stopped what they were doing to see who had yelled but as soon as they saw Cal, now standing up and pointing accusingly at Zach, they rolled their eyes and went back to what they were doing.

"Sit down," Macey commanded, glaring at him menacingly. Cal obediently sat and Macey smacked him as hard as she could across the back of his head.

"What was—"

"You know what—"

"Okay, seriously, I can't decide if those two are friends or plotting to kill each other," Peter said, watching Macey and Cal. "I think I'll go with the latter," Peter said as Cal through an unopened beer at Macey's head.

"You idiotic—!" Macey yelled after catching it a split second before it hit her.

"Honestly Peter, don't you read Vogue?" Bex joked. "Throwing beer bottles at peoples head is the new universal sign for love."

"Oh yeah, how could I forget. It was on right next to the 'Could You Marry Channing Tatum' quiz."

"What was the verdict?" Bex asked.

"Oh we were '100% Compatible'," Peter joked, causing both of them to laugh. By the end of the night Liz, her non-boyfriend, and Jay had all joined the six in the truck. Macey and Cal eventually stopped bickering, Liz and Bex started an intense game of rock paper scissors shoot, and Jay and Liz's non-boyfriend debated whether or not the Redskins had a shot at the Super bowl, Cammie and Zach were sitting beside each other talking quietly, Zach's arms wrapped around her stomach. It was a picture perfect moment that would later be framed in every one's houses with one person either scratched out or decorated with a black sharpie.

A/N: Heehee it's been over a month. Woops :P Luckily, I don't feel bad because none of these ever leave people hanging. I've had this done for a little while, or at least, I had it written but I had to fix some inconsistancies and I haven't had a lot of time. Still, I hope you liked it.

Thank you sooo much to last chapters reviewers (Jazz-shoes, Lemonn-Limee, bookbabe68, and topXsecret) they mean the world to me. Please Review! I'm in the middle of the next two and one of them has a lot of Zach/Cammie while the other is Bex/Cammie so we'll see which one I finish first :)

l/

l/

l/