this is mainly a expository chapter (as was the previous chapter), i'm still introducing all the characters and backgrounds. it's a bit tedious, and i'm sorry. but i'm glad you guys liked zach :) oh and you might not remember, but grant is macey's ex-boyfriend. and they're going to act like ex-boyfriend and girlfriend, unlike glee and gossip girl where they basically rotate around with each other, haha.

[ - the dining hall; lunch - ]

"Maybe Townsend and Smith are conspiring together," Rebecca Baxter sighed, looking between her Countries of the World homework packet and the list of scenarios Townsend had handed out to them to complete by the next day. "Smith hates the CIA because they've been trying to catch him for years; maybe he's trying to get all the students to commit suicide so they can't recruit."

"Wait, I thought you had some sort of British blood brotherhood going on with Townsend?" Cammie asked, sitting down opposite the coffee-skinned, muscle-packed English girl. Preston plodded down into the seat next to her and began shoveling food into his mouth to make up for his lack of breakfast.

"Townsend is so tight, he'd form a blood brotherhood with his job before he formed one with any kind of human being," Bex muttered disdainfully, casting disgruntled looks towards the staff table up front. She flicked a glance towards Cammie's left. "Don't go starving yourself there, Preston."

Preston had been attempting to jam two slices of pizza into his mouth at once. "I 'ungry," he said defensively, cheese sticking to the side of his lip.

"You're disgusting, is what you are," a new voice joined in; Macey. She gracefully slid into the seat next to Bex. Preston's face fell and he closed his mouth as best he could and looked moodily at his knees, chewing in silence.

"What's the capital of Kastyan? Wait, is that a real country? It can't be, I've never heard of it," Bex said, looking at her homework incredulously. She checked the back of her textbook, and looked up, confused. "No way. Has he really started to make up countries? What the bloody hell for?"

Suddenly, a blond head appeared over Bex's shoulder. "Jesus, is that what I missed in C.O.W. today?" Grant Whitley remarked, peering at Bex's paper. A spontaneous, awkward silence fell over the table, and three pairs of eyes shifted to Macey, who had suddenly taken a high interest in her salad, poking at the baby greens with great strength and precision. Grant seemed to have sensed this too, because he had straightened back up uncharacteristically hastily and nervously. "Speaking of which, better go tell Smith why I wasn't there today. Think he'd buy me having food poisoning? Hopefully it won't be too bad. Dabney made us clean her quilts for something like six hours, right?"

Cammie wondered who Grant could've been talking to, when she looked up, and with a start, realized Zachary was there, too, the sleeves of his shirt pushed up above his elbows, looking bored as per usual as he waited on his friend. His eyes slowly meandered around the dining hall, and Cammie could've sworn he caught her eye, but wasn't sure, so she picked at a few fries, dipping them in ketchup and putting them in her mouth while concentrating on the salt and pepper shakers in the middle of the table.

At Grant's query, Zach stopped looking around, and shrugged. "Something like that, yeah."

"Maybe if you started to attend classes, you'd get less detentions," Bex suggested meekly, with a pseudo-motherly smile.

Grant was already backing away when he answered. "But if I did that, my reputation would be tarnished, and you know what would happen then...The balance of the universe would be disrupted, and the whole of the earth would be sucked into a black hole. All because of an insignificant class on a country I will never travel to." He flashed a charming, somewhat lopsided smile.

Bex made a rude hand gesture, which made Grant chuckle and turn.

Exactly three seconds after the two boys disappeared, Macey let her fork clatter to her plate. "So when did you become friends with them?" She asked, her voice a bit strained, her jaw tight.

Bex looked apologetic, but otherwise unfazed. "My parents came here for a conference with Solomon and a few other agents right after the holidays began, I decided I'd hang around. And you know Zach, he doesn't exactly have a place to go so Solomon let's him stay at the academy over summer, and Grant's dad was at the conference too, so we just wandered around did some shit for about three weeks, which was how long the conference was." She finished her little anecdote with a shrug. "They're pretty cool."

"Yeah," Macey murmured in a way that made it obvious she didn't find them very cool at all. "So, are they coming to your party tomorrow night?"

"Don't they always?" Bex asked. It was true; Macey had obviously been invited to every single party Bex had ever held, and when Grant arrived and they had gotten together, he had come, and by default, so had Zach.

"Wait, you're having a party?" Cammie said, surprised she hadn't known.

Bex frowned. "Yeah, didn't I tell you this morning?"

"Oh, no, Preston was having a meltdown over...his deviled egg," Cammie said, slipping Preston an amused look, which he reciprocated with a death glare. "Not fit for social situations. You know. But that's fantastic. Who else is going?"

"The usual suspects," Bex yawned, giving up on her homework and stuffing the packet in her bag. "And—oh, Christ. Tony, of all people, heard me telling Anna about it, and you know how he is, kinda, er—"

"—like a bloodsucking leech—" Cammie suggested helpfully.

"—but hopefully he realizes everyone thinks he's a skeeve and he'll throw himself off the North Tower," Bex finished. She looked around the table. "That's not too wishful, is it?"

"Can I bring the music?" Preston asked eagerly.

"NO," Macey, Bex, and Cammie said at once.

[ - main hall; before languages - ]

Cammie only realized Macey wasn't accompanying them, as she usually did, when they had already gotten back into the main hall. She dashed back in; Macey had acted weird for the rest of lunch period, even after Grant had left the vicinity.

"You okay?" Cammie asked, when she saw Macey leaning against their table, pinching the bridge of her nose.

Macey straightened and looked up. "Oh, yeah, fine," she mumbled unconvincingly. Then, more confidently, she said, "I actually wanted to talk to you."

"What about?" Cammie questioned, as they started walking out the dining hall. She sincerely hoped it wasn't about Grant. Macey had moped around for at least a month after they had broken up (strange because she had dumped him) and Cammie wasn't all too good at relationships herself; despite rumors, in truth, she had had a grand total of two boyfriends. One was civilian, but they had fallen apart: the fact that she couldn't tell him who she was, what she did, or how she did it ended up being very frustrating. The other was a senior when she was a junior, he had an unbelievable superiority complex and Cammie couldn't have been happier to see him graduate, pretending she was very upset that they were separating but really long distance relationships weren't her thing. She hadn't talked to him since.

"Zach," Macey answered, and Cammie jumped a little and did all she could to not yelp.

"Of the -ary Goode fame?" Cammie confirmed.

Macey nodded. "When Grant and I were...well, I think I know him better than, you know, those seventh graders who leave him love notes and stuff, and whatever you'e doing with him—"

Cammie cut her off. "What? I've only spoken to him, like, never."

"Yeah, but I have the feeling you're going to try," Macey retorted, her cerulean eyes flashing. "Because I know you and Preston have this weird thing you do at the beginning of every year and you've never talked about him before today but before he was, you know, looking at you, so—"

"He was?"

"—obviously he made it look like he wasn't, but that's besides the point, Zach doesn't just go around looking at people, because that's kind of creepy, and I just need you to realize that he's not—" Macey stopped abruptly, searching for the right word to use. She pressed her lips together and shook her head. "He's not as...resilient as you probably think he is."

"I—alright," Cammie said, not really understanding what Macey meant, only wanting to leave the dining hall, which had suddenly gotten very cold. "Of course. I'll keep his, um, resilience in mind."

Macey nodded again. "Yeah. Okay. That's really all." She hooked arms with Cammie and they began to traverse across the hall to the thick oak doors (which, Preston had proved in the seventh grade as his dare, was actually missile-proof). Once they were on the other side of the double doors, Macey returned back to normal. "Oh, God, double languages," she groaned, as they headed up the stairs. "Hopefully we don't have to get fluent in another Romantic language."

"Haven't we already learned them all?"

"I'm sure there are still some obscure dialects that were used by the bean-pickers of ancient Rome to communicate their water levels or something," Macey sighed, rolling her eyes.

The two girls looked at each other, then burst into laughter.

don't worry, the next chapter has a lot more of zach (and preston's ridiculous antics) because it's the party :) also, i just wanted to repeat what i said in the last chapter: the ensemble here isn't as...innocent? clean? as the they are in the books. i'm sorry if it makes you feel uncomfortable, but i think it makes everything so much more interesting :) please leave a review.