Hey everyone! I'm suuuuuuper sorry this chapter took so long. At first I was having computer issues again and needed reset my laptop to factory settings and nearly corrupted the file for this fic in the process, and then I had a death in the family, but then things took a turn for the better, because I also got a kitten (who doesn't have a name yet)!

Anyway, as I suggested a few chapters ago, the remaining chapters of this fic are either complete or nearly complete, so I'll be able to resume posting on a much more regular schedule. Thank you for sticking with me!

(And a happy Independence Day to all of my American readers, a happy belated Canada Day to my Canadian readers, and have a nice Tuesday to everyone else.)

This shouldn't be so hard.

This absolutely should not be this hard.

I spent six years studying at an elite academy with a diverse and challenging curriculum. I spent three years at Yale. I've been a field operative for four years, and I've already built up a pretty respectable resume.

Picking wedding colors shouldn't be a challenge. But here we are.

Dad had called in some favors to get the downtown mansion as our venue on such short notice. The mansion was perfect—it had incredibly strict and discreet security measures that would keep the 50 or so intelligence operatives in the building from being sitting ducks during the party, without any of Matt's family's noticing anything suspicious—but it had been difficult to get on such short notice. All of my wedding research has said that six months was a short engagement, but it was as long as any of our co-workers had, and with dad's health taking a turn for the worse, it was as long as Matt and I were willing to go.

So we have the venue—the ceremony will take place in the grand foyer, and the reception will take place in the ballroom—and it's perfect. We've picked our wedding party—Abby and Christine for me, Joe and Matt's brother for him. And the Director—one of dad's old friends—has already agreed to officiate. I have my somethings old (my mother's veil), borrowed (the pearl necklace Abby had inherited from our grandmother), and blue (my shoes); I would be returning to the bridal store tomorrow to decide between one of two dresses to be my something new. But there was still plenty of work to do.

Like pick the wedding colors.

"See, the problem is that the foyer is—"

"Is painted burgundy, but the ballroom is painted navy blue." Abby finished, rolling her eyes.

"Which knocks out five options for the color schemes that I picked. So the remaining options are—"

"Cream and dark green, and cream and gold." Abby finished again.

She was sitting on the coffee table in Matt and Joe's English basement apartment, cross legged, fiddling with a set of fabric swatches. I, meanwhile, was on the couch, the old couch that sucked you in and didn't let you go easily. Joe and Matt, meanwhile, were outside, in their portion of the backyard, making dinner on the grill. It was a rare weekend where we were all in the country, and Matt and I had (begrudgingly) accepted that we would need to take advantage of our free time and our Maid of Honor and Best Man's presence to complete some wedding planning.

But I was stuck on the colors. I'd been thinking about them since dad told me his friends had come through and secured the mansion as our venue a few days before, and I'd been fixated on the same problems. The green would look nice in the blue room, but might look too Christmassy in the burgundy room, and the gold might look a little too garish. But as I sat on the couch and stared at the sample of cream colored satin in my sister's hand, I had another thought.

"Wait—will a white wedding dress clash with all of the cream?"

Abby blinked, twice.

"Order a dress in off-white. Like, ivory, or something similar."

"But, I was going to get a pure white dress."

"Why?" Her face was incredulous. "Because you're a virgin? Or because Queen Victoria told you to?"

"Upper class women in Ancient Rome also wore white to their weddings." I added. I knew it wasn't really relevant, but I'd always imagined wearing a bright white, simple wedding gown with mom's long Belgian lace veil. I just didn't feel like justifying a silly thought to my little sister.

"You sound like your fiancé. Sharing historical trivia." Abby rolled her eyes, and took a sip of the beer that I kept forgetting she was legally allowed to drink. Was I really old enough to have a 21 year old sister?

"Maybe we should wait to pick the colors until tomorrow. When I order my dress, I can ask for some samples of the fabric—"

"No. You said you would pick the colors today, so you're going to pick the colors today. Besides, the plan is to order the bridesmaids dresses tomorrow, and I'm not going to wait around the store for four hours while you decide what color dresses we're going to get. Pick them now."

Abby shoved the fabric swatches under my nose, and, with a glare that I knew was by no means up to my usual fury, I took them from her hand. Maybe, if we use more cream than green, we could avoid looking too much like a Christmas party, but that would only make the clash between my white dress and the cream more obvious. But if we go with a gold and cream color scheme, and we only pick pale gold things, that might look really nice.

I sighed.

"Why don't you just talk to Matt?" Abby suggested, climbing from the coffee table to the spot on the couch next to me. "Since none of my wisdom seems to please you."

I tried and failed to stifle a second sigh.

Matt was more involved in the wedding planning process than my research suggested most grooms were, but I didn't think that the color scheme would matter to him. After all, he usually wore nothing but neutral colors—the most colorful thing he owned was an old green jersey from when he was his high school's star first baseman. But maybe he'd surprise me—he did that a lot.

"Okay." I replied, standing. "It's worth a shot."

The stairs to the backyard were at the end of the hallway, past the bathroom and both bedrooms. At the top of the stairs, the screen door was shut, but the heavy wooden door was wide open. I could hear Matt and Joe speaking in low tones—the grill was immediately next to the door, against the wall of the building.

I was halfway up the short staircase when I heard Joe say "It's getting harder to keep it unofficial, Matt. Don't take any undue risks. Not now."

Now, I don't know what normal people do when they hear words like it's getting harder to keep it unofficial and don't take any undue risks, but to spies (and spy legacies, who grew up listening to her father's meetings through the air vent that ran between her bedroom and his office), those words are a signal to stop and listen.

Did I feel a little guilty for trying to spy on my fiancé and friend, two men who also happen to be my colleagues as field operatives who work for the United States federal government? Maybe a little.

But then Matt answered Joe with a flippant "Well, as long as I get to decide which risks are due and which are undue," and the two men went quiet.

So that was all I heard. Nothing dramatic, nothing scandalous.

I paused for a moment, on the stairs. I could see Joe's back, as he leaned against the wall between the door and the grill, and he was blocking Matt—it was unlikely that they had any way of knowing that I was there, and they weren't going to be on their guard in their own apartment in broad daylight on a weekend. Taking a deep breath, I counted to seven, and then climbed the three remaining stairs.

Pushing open the door, my face was totally neutral as I asked, "Hey, Matt? Can you develop an opinion on wedding colors?"

And as he and Joe turned to me with mildly interested looks on their faces, I took another deep breath to calm my breathing.

Later, after dinner, as the four of us sat at the tiny kitchen table and addressed wedding invitations (cream colored with gold envelopes—we'd bought green envelopes as well, but cream and gold had officially become our wedding colors), I had a chance to think about what I'd heard Joe and Matt talking about.

Nothing that they'd said was remarkable. After all, everyone took on unofficial missions—some were treasonous, but most were entirely reasonable. Some were done to prevent suspicion from double agents within the Agency, some were done for efficiency's sake, some were done with complete approval from the Deputy Director.

I'd done a few. Most of them for one of my sisters from Gallagher (one was for my biological sister, when she found herself in a tight spot in Bucharest), but I'd done a few to help out some old family friends as well.

I wasn't surprised by the fact that Matt and Joe were up to something unofficial. Joe was a classic workaholic, and Matt—well. I truly love Matt, and a part of me—the same silly part of me that insisted I should wear a pure white wedding dress because that's what I imagined for myself when I was six and was the flower girl in one of mom's friends' wedding—knew that I would never fall out of love with Matt. But he has a bit of a martyr complex. He would never let anyone else work or suffer when he could work or suffer himself. The two men together were dangerous.

Unlike most employers, the Agency encourages intra-office dating. It's because our coworkers understand the lifestyle that accompanies the job—they know what questions they can ask and which they can't. They understand that there will be late nights and early mornings and long trips overseas and danger and risks and that most days you will come home having spent entire at the office doing things that you can't talk about over dinner.

So I understood why they hadn't shared what they were up to with me. My feelings weren't hurt. God knows that neither Abby nor I had told them about Bucharest, or the times I'd gone to help a friend in Asuncion or Asmara. Keeping unofficial things unofficial was just part of being professional. And Cameron's were professional above all else.

But later that night, as I laid in bed, trying and failing to fall asleep, I couldn't figure out what I actually was feeling.

Hours after climbing into bed, I settled on anxiety.

Matt had been injured on a job in Acapulco only weeks ago. But he'd been fine, thanks to a mix of luck and the fact that his handler was running comms and was able to get Matt's backup there to help him as soon as possible. But that support system doesn't exist for unofficial missions.

I managed to fall asleep by comforting myself in the most professional way possible—with statistics.

How much time could Matt possibly spend on whatever unofficial mission he was on? Most that I'd been on had been one-of trips. And Matt had been injured once—hadn't he already vowed to learn his lesson and be more careful in the future? So he was more likely to be injured on an official mission than an unofficial mission, and Matt was a natural. He was a pavement artist. He was calm and rational and skilled.

He could still get hurt, but that was I risk I would have to take. Wasn't he taking the same risk by marrying me?