13.

*Joe*

I watched as the sophomore girls took the pop quiz over the video that we had just finished watching. I noticed one girl in the back mark the wrong answer on number ten and I inwardly cringed. Sometimes I just didn't understand how some people – especially spies – couldn't watch an hour long video and not remember just one little detail about it.

It never ceased to amaze me.

After five minutes, I said, "Pencils down," and watched as a sophomore girl in the front, with blond, French braided hair, jumped at the sound of my voice in the silence. I resisted the urge to sigh. These girls were such amateurs. They all had a lot to learn about CoveOps, and I knew I had my work cut out for me as their teacher.

I took up all of the quizzes, already noting some incorrect answers, and then said, "Dismissed. For homework tonight, read chapters three through five and expect a pop quiz tomorrow."

They left and I put the stack of papers on my desk before going through them quickly, marking the wrong answers with a black pen. I got through the stack fairly quickly and had just finished when the senior class – Katelyn's class, if she were still at Gallagher – came in. Laura and Alicia – Katelyn's old roommates – took their usual seats, chattering about some boy band I didn't know. I wondered what they thought about Katelyn leaving. Of course, they didn't know the true story. They'd been told that Katelyn was being accepted into an accelerated CIA program. That's what everyone had been told. And everyone believed it.

Except for Leah, Katelyn's best friend. She came in with her head bowed slightly, quiet as she always was these days. I watched as she approached me in her slightly wrinkled uniform, her hair pulled back away from her face and secured with a gold clip. She wore no makeup; I noticed when she looked up at me. Not that it mattered, she wasn't ugly. I was just used to girls always wearing makeup around me. "Can I help you, Leah?"

She gave me a small smile. "Yeah, I have a letter to give you. You weren't at breakfast this morning, so Mr. Mosckowitz asked me to give it to you. Here you go."

A plain white envelope.

Katelyn.

My heart beat faster but I kept my face composed as I reached for it. "Thank you so much. How are you holding up?"

She shrugged. "You know."

"Yeah," I said softly. "I do."

It was all I could do not to open the envelope right there, but I set it on the corner of my desk and paced the room, lecturing. After what seemed like forever instead of just an hour and a half, the bell rang and the students began to file out, more slowly than usual, it seemed. Finally, though, they were all out and I went to the envelope and had it open within two seconds. On it, in Katelyn's handwriting, was another anagram; this time, with Greek symbols.

Meet me back in Italy.

*Katelyn*

I pulled on a light blue sweater along with my jeans and then pulled on shoes. I pulled my hair into a low ponytail as I shut the door of my hotel room behind me, and I headed for the fountain. I don't know why I had to go there, but I did.

It only took me three minutes to reach it, and I stood at the edge of its stone base, watching the water from the top hit the water below, sending out ripples. The sound was soothing, too, almost like rain. I could feel the cool air from the water hitting me in the face, too, and I breathed in the scent of the square.

People were bustling around and I ignored them, waiting.

After only a few minutes, I felt him. He walked up behind me and then stood right beside me, the scent of his cologne wafting towards me. "You rang?" he asked in that deep voice of his and I looked over to see that he looked the same, too. Cleanly shaven, hair messy, dressed in jeans and a button-up shirt.

"Yeah, I did," I said, turning slightly to angle towards him. "I need you to tell me."

He was staring at the water. "Tell you what?"

"About us."

He didn't look surprised. Maybe he had known that this was coming. Or maybe, he was just a good operative. "What have you figured out, thus far?"

"Just memories here and there," I said softly, looking once more at the water. Two birds were on top of the statues and they hopped around as if they had all the energy in the world. Funny; all my energy felt zapped away like my strength after a rigorous martial arts session.

"Like what?"

"I just saw us," I answered simply. "Us; together. I want to know what's going on. I want to know why it felt so familiar when you kissed me. I want to know why there's a huge hole in my memory and why I didn't realize that there was until now. I want to know everything that you can tell me."

There was a silence that stretched on for about a minute. And then, he said, "Not here. Come back with me to my hotel."

I gave a brief nod and then he was leading me away, his warm, strong hand in mine. His hotel was farther away than mine, but we still made it there in less than five minutes. His room was neater than mine, but I didn't care as I sat down on the bed and looked at him. I watched as he did a quick sweep of the room for bugs and then sat in the chair provided by the small table beside the bed. He looked at me, then, a look full of every emotion you could think of.

"Tell me," I whispered.

And that's all it took for him to begin talking.