#Gallagher Girls Series

[chaoticbug]

I'm rereading gallagher girls and can I just say I'd Tell You I'd Love You But Then I'd Have to Kill You is so funny if you think about it from Josh's perspective.

Like you're just vibing at a fair and then all the sudden you see a girl reaching her hand into a trashcan to grab a soda bottle, you make eye contact and the first thing she says is "I have a cat." You have a silly little conversation about her cat who loves bottles, and learn she is homeschooled for religious reasons and then you leave thinking she's cute.

Then you run into her a few more times including at outside your neighbors surprise party, that she claims she was going to but then never enters. You ask this girl how to keep in touch because you like her, and she says no phone or email, leave notes in this wall instead???? You try to figure out what church this "homeschooled for religious reasons and doesn't have a phone" girl goes to and you have no idea.

You start dating her-still messaging through the wall- she never lets you take her home, she gets really confused when you give her a present on her birthday, almost like she forgot it was her birthday?

Then your friend claims that your girlfriend isn't actually homeschooled, she actually goes to the super exclusive boarding school for rich girls in your home town. When you catch her outside the school, she breaks up with you, claiming she was bored and that's why she dated you and then she IMMEDIATELY GETS KIDNAPPED.

So you do what any normal person would do, you call the cops. you try and rescue her and she's mad about it??? Claims it was a school thing??? And now she's fighting people off and ziplinning away while saying she never had a cat???

So your next rational move is to steal a forklift and drive it through the wall to save your girlfriend from whatever craziness she's involved in.

Then you're taken back to the boarding school, learn its actually a school for spies, your girlfriend is a spy and has lied to you about every single detail about herself, even down to her birthday and her dad being dead. Literally nothing you know about this girl except for her first name is true, and you've been dating for months.

And then her mom gives you special tea that makes you forget everything since she dumped you and you immediately start dating your girl best friend.

Like this poor man lmao

[gildengirl]

The Gallagher Academy in the fall ༄˖°.🍂.ೃ࿔*:･

[cammie-morgan-goode]

Just coming back after a hiatus to say that the world is not very Gallagher Girls Stick Together™️ right now.

[incorrectgallaghergirlsquotes]

Assigning each Gallagher Girls character a Taylor Swift era:

(assuming I haven’t done this already)

Taylor Swift— Matthew Morgan

Fearless— Josh Abrams

Speak Now— Macey McHenry

RED— Rachel Morgan

1989— Abigail Cameron

reputation— Cammie Morgan

Lover— Liz Sutton

Folklore— Edward Townsend

Evermore— Zachary Goode

Midnights— Bex Baxter

TTPD— Joe Solomon

[g-girlshavingfun]

December Prompts

1) Warm Tequila - Abby x Townsend

Set about 5 years after the events of UWS, Abby and Townsend explore the Christmas markets in London. (2,121)

———————————————————————

“What do you think?”

Edward’s gaze, previously locked fiercely on a group of young men armed with black puffer jackets and overpriced beer not-so-discretely leering at any and all women who happened to pass them by, jumped back to his wife at her inquisitive tone.

Blinded momentarily by her smile, he took a moment to simply stare at her. Dark hair half-buried under her woolly hat fell in waves around her face made pale by the cold. The dusting of freckles that decorated her nose and cheeks, the pattern that was engrained in the memory of his lips, that he knew better than he knew the features of his own face, were buried under the redness of her nose, the pinking of her cheeks. Emerald eyes twinkled with mischief, alight with joy and the reflection of the Christmas lights lining the market stall they stood beneath. Her smile spread far beyond her mouth. From the whites of her teeth, ever so slightly crooked in the back of her mouth in a way that no one could see but Edward knew intimately, to the stretch of her lips, chapped from the cold but soft all the same. From the rounding of her cheeks and the scrunching of her eyes, to the giggle in her shoulders and the bounce in her toes. It spread beyond her even, reaching the tips of his tingling fingers and filling his chest with an adoring warmth. Slight lines cut through her face, a lifetime of her smiles carving brackets around her eyes, and more than a lifetime’s worth of pain slicing through the skin above her forehead. She wasn’t quite the 24 year old he met in Barcelona, nor the woman just beginning her 30’s he fell head over heels for in Buenos Aires, but here amongst the London gabble, browsing through tat in Leicester Square’s Christmas market, less than a year from entering her 40’s, he was still absolutely certain of what he first decided all those years ago.

Abigail Cameron was undoubtedly the most gorgeous woman in the world.

Remembering that she asked him a question, he kickstarted his brain back into motion and finally registered the monstrosity she was holding out in front of him. It somewhat resembled a winter hat, though it just as easily could’ve been an overfed cat for all the fur lining the inside. It was a sort of vomit-green colour, equipped with a red bobble on top and matching ear flaps on the sides. Adorning the face of it was the likeness of that thing from the Christmas film Abby loved so much, a similar vomit shade of green with a devilish grin and light-up yellow eyes. The Grinch, he remembered.

Fighting valiantly against the smirk that tugged against his lips, he quirked an eyebrow at her. “You already have a hat Abigail.”

Her grin grew, delighted in his indulgence of her antics. “Not for me silly!” She tapped her card against the reader held out to her by the man working the stand, flashing him a smile that seemed to stun him to the spot.

Edward could empathise.

Reaching upwards, she yanked the garish hat unceremoniously onto his head, adjusting it slightly so  he could still see, and giving his cheeks a patronising pat before her arms settled around his shoulders.

“Absolutely not.”

“C’mon Townsend you need a winter hat. You lose most of your heat through your head you know-

“Actually that study was debunked a few years ago.”

“-and this one suits you perfectly!” It was getting hard to focus on what she was saying. Her fingers were dancing across the back of his neck and playing with the curls of his hair slipping out the back of the hat. “Besides, what would your mother say if she knew you were wandering around in the freezing cold-

“-It’s only 5 degrees love.”

“-freezing, without a hat on?”

“Well she’s from Carlisle, so she’d probably be ashamed that I’m wearing a coat.”

“Yeah I don’t know what that means.”

And then she kissed him.

It was a short kiss - too short - but it made him go weak in the knees, the ankles, the heart, all the same. His hands latched onto her waist and pulled, grunting slightly as she let herself go weightless against him, feeling her smile into his mouth as he lost himself in her. When she moved to pull away, his entire body seemed to chase her. Tightening his arms around her back, arching his neck down towards her face, his nose brushing up against hers in a desperate attempt to keep their lips attached. Laughing, she pulled away anyhow, leaving only her fingers on his shoulders, the tip of her nose against his jaw, her breath sweeping across his neck.

Looking up at him through her eyelashes, she pouted, uttered a single “Please?” and he was gone.

“Fine.”

Anything to get her to kiss him like that one more time. All the time. For the rest of time.

Again, her lips were warm on his, a stark contrast to the state of her fingers now running down his spine from under the collar of his coat. One of his own hands crept upwards, cupping the back of her head and soothing through the silk that was her hair, the other migrating around her back, encircling her in his arms like he could keep her there forever. Cherry danced across his tongue, the scent of jasmine tickled his nose, symphonies of all the sonnets ever written cascaded through his ears. All his senses were engulfed by her. It was all he could do to contain his love, his elation, his-

Giggles broke them apart. Not his wife’s this time, but a trio of preteen girls hovering nearby. Abby turned and smiled kindly at them, no sign of the embarrassment that danced across his own cheeks, and he couldn’t help the bashful smile that broke across his face.

“Ah ha!” Quick as anything, she had pulled out her phone and snapped a picture of his love-stricken grin, ignoring the pained groan that crept out of his mouth. “What? Its just for Zach. And your parents. And maybe Rachel and the girls, they think you never smile you know?” Walking backwards, perfectly navigating the crowds of tourists despite never breaking eye-contact with him, her hands travelled down his arms until they intertwined with his own, pulling him along with her through the market stalls once more.

“As long as Solomon never sees it.”

“Eh, no promises.” Another groan. “C’mon grumpy, you can buy me a drink to cheer yourself up.”

“How will that cheer me up?”

“Because maybe I’ll find a way to pay you back.” With a wink that made his heart stutter and all the blood and heat in his body rush somewhere very not appropriate for their current circumstances, she spun on her heel and tugged him more urgently towards the pop-up bar. “We’re trying the Poppins special.”

Once he regained control of his wits, he glanced up at the menu boards. The usual festive drinks were on offer, mulled wine and cider, Irish coffee and hot chocolates, even Prosecco for those willing to fork out £15 a glass. There were tamer options as well for those less in the Christmas spirit, beer and larger on tap, plus every spirit and mixer known to man, but of course Abby had opted for one of the themed cocktail specials. Cleverly, they had devised a different drink for each of the famous statues dotted around the market, including a kid-friendly option named after Paddington the bear, and Edward quickly focussed his vision on the one named after the illustrious nanny.

“Tequila? Who drinks hot tequila?”

“You in about 5 minutes.” She gave him a gentle push to the middle of his back, tone growing impatient, “Large please.”

“I don’t know why I have to have it as well.” Protesting even as he held out his card to the bartender, nodding in polite acknowledgement of his sympathetic smile. “I’d be much happier with a whiskey.”

“Well that wouldn’t be very Christmassy-“

“Not a word.”

“-yes it is! would it? Besides, you’ll like this.” Abby near-always spoke with confidence, even when she was blatantly wrong and knew it, but her absolute assuredness gave him pause.

He turned to face her, eyebrows furrowing, “How do you know?”

“Uhh because I know you dummy?”

“No, how do you know I’ll like it if you don’t know what it tastes like?” Eyes flickering downward, she bit her lip slightly, humming in thought. Edward huffed in disbelief. Of course she managed to sneak off and treat herself. “When? We’ve been together the entire time?”

“You were very distracted staring at the jewellery over there,” she jutted her head towards the adjacent stall and he followed her gaze. The table was adorned with floral rings and earrings, bracelets and hairpieces, the necklaces displayed behind the woman manning the station. It wasn’t extravagant stuff, though the advertisement claimed they were made of real flowers, and nothing that Abby would ever wear, but while he had already bought gifts for his side of the family, he had little planned for those back home. He had been eyeing a charm bracelet for Cammie, after all these years still uncertain if it was the kind of gift a man bought his niece-in-law-slash-almost-daughter-in-law, and he must’ve been debating it for longer than he thought. Abby’s voice broke through his musings once more. “She’s very pretty isn't she?”

What?

“What- No!” He spun back around to face her, a sliver of panic gripping him as he realised he was staring at the stand, lost in thought, and the woman attending it was smiling back at him. Abby only laughed at him though, throwing her head back and quelling the brief dread of a fight that had started building in him.

Taking her drink from the bartender in one hand, her smile of thanks igniting a flush across the young mans face, her other reached up and threaded through the hair on the back of his neck in apology for her teasing. Retrieving his own drink, he huffed in forgiveness, removing the aforementioned icicles from his neck and placing a small kiss to her fingers as he led them away from the bar.

“How come I get bullied into wearing this hat-“

“I would call it gentle encouragement.”

“—but you’re allowed to lose your fingers to frostbite by not wearing gloves?”

“Because how am I supposed to show this off if I’m wearing gloves?”

Taking a generous drink of the warmed tequila through her smirk, she released his hand to hold her own out in front of them, wiggling her fingers until her ring caught the twinkling of the lights around them. Reluctantly, he conceded the point to her, recalling the number of times today that she had caught the attention of onlookers, their eyes drifting from her face to her left hand in resigned disappointment. Edward could feel his own ring, his most prized possession, cool around his own finger, and smiled. He hadn’t taken it off since he officially stepped out of the field and into a desk position at Langley, his bad knee from all those years ago finally getting the upper hand on him, but the novelty of being married to this woman had yet to wear off.

“Right, bottoms up or whatever.” He rolled his eyes at her attempt at an English accent. “Seriously, just try it.”

In a mirror image of her, he raised the plastic glass to his lips, taking a slow, deliberate gulp.

Bloody hell, he hated it when she was right.

The burn from the tequila was tempered by the warmth of the drink itself, and challenged by the zap  of orange and lemon dancing down his throat. It was thick and had a hint of sweetness, no doubt containing an unholy amount of honey, but the bitterness of aniseed balanced it out well. Hints of cinnamon and nutmeg danced on his tongue, and he was suddenly struck by the question of whether he could taste the spices on hers.

“See, you love it.” Another laugh bubbled out her mouth at his reluctant affirmation, mirth streaking across her face as she shook her head in astonishment. “When are you gonna learn that I’m always right hey?”

Sending another gulp down his throat, he set his drink to the side, grabbing hers while he was at it. Ignoring her protests, he pulled her in by the waist, desperate to learn the answer to his own question. But first…

“I love you.”

He kissed the smirk straight off her face.

———————————————————————

Authors note:

There you go, there’s roughly 2000 words of Tabby fluff and Townsend being a major simp.

Apologies for British nonsense, but unfortunately, much like Edward Townsend, I too am English. For those not cursed with the insider knowledge, Carlisle is a city pretty far north in England, hence being used to the cold, the wind, and the rain. Leicester Square is a square in London near the West End where they have a popular Christmas market every year. It’s next to the cinemas where they hold movie premieres so theres loads of statues of famous British entertainment figures like Paddington, Mary Poppins, and Mr Bean.

[jltonnere]

YOU. GUYS. SEPTEMBER 24TH???

[bryn-not-brynn]

Full Circle "1978" (Joe)

“Yeah, I know,” he says. “Your name is Ezekiel, but everyone else has a cool nickname, so I don’t see what the big deal is—”

“No,” he says, quieter this time. Matt’s at the very top of the rope, and Zeke is at the very bottom. They couldn’t be farther away from one another, and yet Matt still feels like they’re whispering from mere inches away. “My name is Joe.”

@averagejoesolomon

[they-didnt-last]

if i had a nickel for every fandom i'm in where one of the characters is an american boy who goes by his mother's last name because his british father left for seemingly work reasons therefore causing him everlasting daddy issues, i would have two nickels which isn't a a lot but it's kinda funny that it happened twice

[superblycaffeinated]

Find the list of January Prompts I’m participating in here - join in! I love seeing all the different stories people come up with from the same words 💙 I actually didn’t pop the words of the prompt into this one, just more of the general feeling that they brought to me. Please enjoy Joe being Joe and also the tiniest hint of a nod to the listen series by @averagejoesolomon in the form of a spoon, a dad and his daughter in this 

Joe could use a shower, a warm bed, and a decent cup of coffee. His jet-lag hasn’t caught up to him just yet, that feeling of an op clings to him, keeping him going far longer than possible. Adrenaline and anxiety curl around tense and tight muscles still, making his brain more alert than it should be. 

Which is why he slows his steps when the black town car rounds the corner, heading in the same direction as him. Eyes track the moving vehicle from under aviators as he pulls out the burner, maintaining his course towards the idling jet, dialing the number he’s had memorized for the past several years. 

It rings three times, he speaks five numbers into the receiver clearly, then a click. 

“Rachel Morgan, Headmistress of the-”

“Catch me up here, Rach-Ms. Morgan,” he corrects, staring as the car’s red brake lights glow, and a teenage girl climbs out of the backseat. 

Rachel’s voice is crackled and stiff over the line, but he can detect the amusement in her tone. “We have an international student who just so happened to also need a lift home. Win-win.”

The teenage girl stands with her arms crossed next to the trunk of the car, a stubborn pout on her lips before she sees him. He can tell she’s startled at the sight of him - hesitant - all of it clear just from her eyes, but she’s pretty good at hiding it - her body language and pout remain intact. 

He ducks his head, lips barely moving against the phone as he hisses, “How is me, sitting on a jet, alone, trapped with a teenage girl for eight hours, a win-win, Rachel?”

“You need a ride, she needs a ride, and I need you both here. Quite literally the definition of a win-win, if you ask me. Actually, it’s technically a win-win-win. They should give me a trophy for that many in a row.” 

Abe and Grace Baxter climb out of the car and he watches the girl melt into her mother’s embrace as he grows closer to the trio and the waiting jet. 

He shakes his head, ever so slightly, and laughs, amused, but irritated nonetheless. 

“You know, you’re becoming more and more like your sister each passing day?”

It’s meant as a joke, a light-hearted jab, like they used to. But things aren’t the same anymore, and they haven’t been for quite some time. 

If he were there, in person, maybe he’d see her eyes, feel that air that surrounds Rachel and tells him the silent things he needs to know. But he’s in London and she’s in Virginia, and all he can do is listen to the tight way her words come out. 

“Well, I suppose I should take that as a compliment. Everyone likes Abby more anyways. Always have, right?”

“Rachel, I didn’t mean-”

“Best get going, Mr. Solomon. At this rate, you and Ms. Baxter will be crashing my welcome back speech.”

The phone clicks and then she’s gone. 

He’s at the car now, and Abe Baxter has his hands on his daughter’s shoulders, smiling.

“Don’t forget that thing I taught you with-”

“With the spoon. Yeah, dad, I got it.” She rolls her eyes, tone seeming to be brushing it off, but Joe can see the way she loves her father fiercely, all from those eyes that give her away. 

Grace smiles at him, “Sorry we can’t stay and catch up, Joe. Duty calls. Keep an eye on our girl?”

He nods, a short but courteous thing and offers his best smile. He drops the burner, stomps on it, and pulls the pieces apart before tossing it to Abe who catches it without looking up. Rebecca Baxter watches it all with eager, hungry eyes - like a sponge trying to absorb every last drop. He suspects she’ll be one of his new students who gives him a run for his money. And that’s before he hears:

“Darling, give Liz and Cammie our love!” 

She waves as the town car doors close, watching until it disappears and her bags and trunks are loaded into the plane. 

Joe is fairly certain his heart rate has increased exponentially because not only is he about to be trapped on a plane with a teenager, but a teenager who just so happens to be best friends with the one girl he isn’t ready to see again. 

Rebecca turns to face him, her hand out, overconfidence radiating out of her like she thinks she’s a seasoned operative like her parents, like him, and not the inexperienced teenager that she is. 

Joe is one thousand percent positive he can hear Matthew Morgan, somewhere, wishing him an apprehensive:

Good luck, buddy. And get ready.

[doodle-do-wop]

oooooh you read the gallagher girls! I love those books!

YEAH!!

I love Gallagher Girls! It's such a good series and the first book is totally camp

Apologies to my KOTLC mutuals but Gallagher Girls takes the cake for number one best series in my heart and in general. It is so so good and the characters are so complex and real and they're messy (it's got a bit of that early 2000s charm and a bit of the way it's written)

Heck even background characters have arcs when if they're not super noticeable the first time round (I notice way too much because I'm obsessed and very not normal about them). I've managed to share GG with a couple of friends irl and online and it's so fun to see/hear their reactions

Honestly I'd also put The Squad (a two book series by Jennifer Lynn Barnes) as number two in my heart. I have a love hate relationship with KOTLC where I love to hate and hate to love. The Squad was only a duo series but DAMN does it leave me wanting more so so bad. Incredibly funny, wonderful cast. If I had a nickel for every book series I read where a high school age girl goes to a school for secret operatives disguised as something else, I'd have two nickels!

(If I ever had to dunk on a book harder than KOTLC (I dunk lovingly) it would be Also Known As (I forgot the author) it's another duo series and book one was pretty good but book two made me never wanna pick it back up again even if I was promised billionaires would get taxed if I did)

But yeah! Love Gallagher girls, will never not love it because it became my personality from now till forever

[imessedup-bettertryitagain]

does anyone know where/if there is an Ally Carter discord server, a friend told me there was one but I can't seem to find it anywhere, but if there is one, I would love to meet other fans!!

[gildengirl]

Learn her skills. Honor her sword. Keep her secrets.

Gillian Gallagher aesthetic

[cammie-morgan-goode]

In OSOT, when cam comes back, zach says it's different, and he seem a bit distance quite a while, with him & bex always together. Do you think he's also mad at cam that's why? Or something else?

Oh my poor Zachy boy…

Zach’s mad. He’s furious with Cam. He’s pissed at her.

But not for the reasons we think.

Zach is the one who gave Cammie the idea of running away. He said so in OGSY. He told Cam that they should run. That they would keep each other safe. And Cam told him no. Cammie told him that that was not an option.

And what does she do? She leaves without him and she runs.

Zach doesn’t know where she is. She didn’t leave a note for anyone, she didn’t say goodbye, she’s just gone.

Zach has nobody. He can’t go home. He can’t go to his mom. He can’t go back to school. He doesn’t know if Cammie is even alive until they find her in Switzerland. And during that time he has Bex. And Bex is the only constant in his life that summer. She is the only one keeping his feet on the ground and keeping him from doing something stupid. Because if he can’t find Cammie, what does he have left? Joe’s in a coma for goodness sake.

And then to make matters worse, Cam comes back and she’s different. She can’t remember anything from that summer. He doesn’t even want to think about what she could’ve endured. He doesn’t want to process that. Between the sessions with Dr. Steve, the weapons incident, the memory loss, the fact that the Circle is still out there…

He tried to find Cam and he failed.

Things are different between them and while Cam is trying to process that and her missing summer, Zach is trying to process the fact that anything could have happened to Cammie and there was nothing he could do to stop that.

[incorrectgallaghergirlsquotes]

Do you think Bex, Cam or Macey or Zach will ever teach at the Gallagher academy in the future?

Honestly I could see all of them teaching there at some point. Coming in to teach coveops or another class for a semester or a year could be fun for Bex or Macey. I do think Cammie eventually takes her mom’s position as headmistress. And it is my personal headcanon that, rather than have Zach just be the Gallagher coveops teacher, I think he becomes headmaster of Blackthorne.

[g-girlshavingfun]

December Prompts

17) An attic - Cammie x Zach

Zach and Cammie are spending the Christmas after the events of UWS at her Grandparent’s ranch in Nebraska with the rest of her family, and they manage to find a moment of peace away from the adults together. (3,836)

———————————————————————

“We’re not talking about Dubai unless you want to talk about how I saved the day again.”

“Was that before or after you nearly got us caught in the first place?”

“It was certainly after you fucked up your Arabic in front of the Prime Minister, I can tell you that much.”

Zach was losing his mind.

When Cammie had asked him if he wanted to join her and her family at her grandparent’s ranch over Christmas, assuming they weren’t distributed on assignments of course, he had already been nervous. He was a dangerous looking kid who attended a school for troubled boys as far as civilians were concerned, so adults didn’t tend to like him on first meeting. Even the spies in his girlfriend’s family tended to take some time to warm to him, to trust him, to like him, although in fairness those adults knew who his mother was. With only a week away from work, he had worried that Cammie’s grandparents would have him labelled as a troublemaker from the get-go and he wouldn’t have time to persuade them otherwise. Cammie had tried to ease his fears. Had told him that her grandpa would love him as long as he helped out on the ranch, that her grandma would spend the entire week trying to force feed him, that they were kind and loving and very accepting. In the end, it was only the promise that Joe was coming as well, was being dragged to see them for the first time since their son’s funeral, no longer just their son’s best friend but now their daughter-in-law’s new husband, that convinced him to come.

Of course, Zach hadn’t stopped to think about the fact that Townsend would be coming as well.

He should have. Obviously. Him and Abby seemed to be attached at the hip after making up after their most recent fight, and a foot chase with some stray Circle lackeys had left his bad knee in a brace, so it wasn’t a surprise that he had been dragged along to what was apparently her first visit to the ranch since before Matthew Morgan’s first funeral.

It wasn’t all bad. Between Grandma Morgan fawning over the three girls, over college classes and wedding pictures and Abby Darling what happened to your shoulder, and Grandpa Morgan unknowingly pitting the two men against one another when he took them both out into the fields, Cammie’s grandparents didn’t have as much time to interrogate him about his childhood and his family and his plans for the future. In fact, very few invasive questions had been asked at all, and none had been asked about his parents. Someone, either Cammie or Mrs Morgan, had obviously pre-warned the couple about the complicated relationship between Townsend and Zach, as neither of them gave a second thought to their physical similarities or the lingering awkwardness or the way Abby and Cammie kept trying to push them to talk to one another.

That was the problem. The awkwardness.

Even though Townsend had been making painful efforts with him, explaining himself and his relationship with Catherine when she had revealed the truth, stiffly asking questions about his likes and interests in the months after they had found out, going out of his way to look out for him and Cammie both when they started at Langley, the entire situation was still awkward. He didn’t ask for a father, had stopped asking for one a long time ago, and clearly Townsend hadn’t been looking for a son. Plus there was the Cammie/Abby issue making everything slightly more complicated. And the Joe issue. And the Catherine issue. And the… well there were just a lot of issues.

Of course, when Townsend wasn’t bumbling through another uncomfortable attempt at bonding with him, or endearing himself to Grandma Morgan by bonding with Cammie, or suffering through a joint interrogation by Grandpa Morgan and Mrs Morgan, he was doing what he did best. Bickering with Abby.

“My Arabic was flawless-”

“So flawless he tipped off the presidential guard?”

“There was no indication that that was him Abigail, besides-”

Zach was losing his mind.

From across the room, he managed to catch Mrs Morgan’s gaze from where she leaned against her dozing husband, the exasperated glare on her face betrayed by the amusement twinkling in her eyes. She rolled them at him anyway, drawing a small quirk of lips out of him.

“If you seriously suggest that the guards made us because of my table etiquette again, I’m gonna lose it.”

“This is you not losing it?”

It was just the five of them in the room, Grandma Morgan out at an evening pottery class while her husband had gone across the road to bring their neighbours some of their chicken’s eggs. Cammie had disappeared some some ago, which would’ve made him panic had both entrances to the ranch house not been within his eyeline, had the open plan layout not given them visuals on all four exterior angles of the building, had she not promised to stay inside. That left him with the man who was his father, seated uncomfortably on the couch with his girlfriend’s feet in his lap, said girlfriend who was also his own girlfriend’s aunt, and his girlfriend’s mother and stepfather. Talk about awkward.

“You know what Ed? At least I can speak Romanian without my accent slipping through.”

And of course they wouldn’t stop arguing.

“That was one time, and it was years ago!”

Zach was losing his mind.

Thankfully, Mrs Morgan seemed to take pity on him, gesturing to the stairs with her eyes and giving him a slight nod when he raised his eyebrows in question. Truthfully he had wanted to track Cammie down for the past 20 minutes, but he felt a bit bad leaving Mrs Morgan alone with the bickering pair, Joe being no help having fallen asleep over an hour ago. Grateful for the permitted reprieve, he slipped out of his own chair and made his way up the carpeted steps, smirking to himself when he heard the woman who granted it to him begin to tease her sister about an assignment in Bahrain where her own cover momentarily slipped. Townsend had just laughed in response, the two of them seemingly working together to wind Abby up when Zach reached the top of the stairs, the noise from below fading into the background.

Once at the top of the stairs he took a cursory look around, assessed the empty bathroom and the guest room opposite, his room, devoid of life. At one end of the end of the hallway, the room shared by Cammie’s grandparents looked undisturbed, the door still propped ajar by Grandpa Morgan’s jacket caught in the hinges as it was this morning, and the at other end, the room currently shared by Townsend and Abby looked similarly untouched. If he stood on his tiptoes, Zach could just make out the gleam of a dime propped against the top of the door, positioned to fall on the metal handle and make a clang Zach didn’t doubt any agent in the vicinity would react to should someone other than the intended couple open the door. Adjacent to their room, the room Zach was sure used to belong to Mr Morgan by the speed at which Mrs Morgan relinquished it to her sister, her and Joe opting to stay in the den downstairs instead, was Cammie’s. Though the door was wide open, Zach kept his distance, certain he’d face the wrath of someone in this house if he was caught in her bedroom, though he wasn’t entirely sure who would be the most mad. She wasn’t in there anyway. It was too quiet.

That left the attic.

Zach looked up, eyeing the overhead hatch and assessing its placement. It did look slightly misaligned compared to earlier this morning. Taking the access pole, he slowly and quietly slid the hatch open, pulling down the contained ladder and climbing up, sealing up the entrance behind him as he crept into the dim space.

There she was.

Dirty blonde hair still pulled back in the braid Abby had worked on this morning, dust smearing her her prominent cheekbones, rosy cheeks gleaming at him, she seemed to glow in the dim yellow light of the attic. Her feet were wrapped up in the fluffiest socks Zach had ever seen, her torso adorned with one of her father’s checkered shirts layered over one of her stepfather’s sweatshirts. She sat curled up in the corner against a stack of cardboard boxes, the shadows cast by the towers of storage around her obscuring her features from him, a pile of albums to her left and an open book propped up on her lap. Disturbed by his entrance, she looked up towards him as he crawled past old TVs and suitcases to get to her, shooting him a warm smile as he perched himself at her side.

“Ah, you found me.”

He’ll always find her. He’ll never stop looking.

But he didn’t want to bring down the pleasant mood, to chill the soft warmth glowing in his chest, so he just smirked at her. “You’re getting sloppy Gallagher Girl.” She shot him a grin and an eye roll for that, eyes lighting up slightly at the fond nickname. Something thick built up in his throat, in his lungs, in his heart. Something that might be love.

No. It was definitely love.

“Are they still fighting?”

“Like an uptight cat and a stubborn dog.”

“Cats and dogs have nothing on those two.” Chuckling as she knocked her shoulder into his, he wrapped an arm around her and drew them close together, sighing in contentment as she laid her head on his shoulder. “Sorry I disappeared.”

The words were heavier than they needed to be. Both of them silently acknowledging that she had a history of disappearing, of scaring him, of scaring them all. The memories of that summer clogged in his throat, choking him, suffocating him. Pushing through it, he pressed a kiss to her forehead in forgiveness, reaching out for the book, a photo album, sat in her lap.

“Your parents?” She hummed in confirmation and nodded against his shoulder, angling the album towards him so he could get a better look.

An unknown version of Mrs Morgan looked back at him from the photo album, dark hair framing a younger face, expression light with joy and love and youth. Adorned in a white silken dress, she didn’t look that different to the woman Zach remembered from the summer just passed, though the man standing beside her was markedly so. Joe was tall, not quite as tall as Townsend but enough that he was nearly a full head taller than his wife. On the other hand, Mr and Mrs Morgan stood at roughly the same height in these pictures, though Zach was sure she was wearing heels. His hair was lighter than Joe’s, his skin more tanned, his body slimmer where Joe’s was lean. Rather than a subtle smirk, his face was plastered with a wide, crooked grin, eye’s alight with warmth where Joe’s were deep and contemplative. The biggest similarity between the two was how they looked at the woman pictured next to them, loving and trusting and astonished. Zach wondered if he looked that lovestruck looking at that woman’s daughter.

Cammie’s voice broke him out of his musings. “All of Grandma’s wedding questions got me thinking about Mom and Dad’s. Thought I’d hunt down the photo albums while Luke and Lorelai get into it downstairs.”

“Who?”

She blinked up at him. “You’ve never watched- Never mind, we’ll add it to the list.”

Once the Circle had been taken down, the couple could finally spend some time together outside of the Academy without looking over their shoulders every five minutes, without one of them disappearing in a mysterious puff of smoke, without fearing that Zach’s mother could capture or kill them any moment. In doing so, Cammie discovered that his childhood wasn’t just devoid of a father, a normal mother-son relationship, friends his own age, but he also didn’t get the opportunity to watch much TV, Catherine usually picking them up and moving them across the world before they could think to set up an aerial. Every time Zach didn’t catch a reference one of the girls, usually Macey, made, Cammie made a note of the relevant context he was missing and tried to set aside time for the two of them to watch it together.

Last weekend they had watched Mean Girls.

Zach turned to watch his girlfriend’s face as she continued flicking through the album. How her eyes got misty at every picture of her parents, how her smile stretched out her face when she found pictures with Joe lurking in the background, how her laugh brought light the the otherwise gloomy attic when she turned the page to find a picture of her aunt jumping on her father’s back. At a picture of Mr Morgan with his parents, she hesitated, her finger running across her grandparent’s faces, the grief and pain of the last few years absent in the memories of their younger selves.

“At dad’s funeral, the first one I mean, Grandma was completely out of it. She hugged me once then stopped acknowledging I was there. Stopped acknowledging anyone. Grandpa kept crying. He was trying not to, was trying to be strong for Grandma and I, Mom too, but he just kept crying. They lost their child…” Her words failed her, trailing off into the silence and darkness surrounding them. Biting her lip, she appeared deep in thought, eyes a million miles away.

It only took a moment for his memories of last summer to come flooding back, Mrs Morgan’s blank expression haunting him. The way her voice cracked around Cammie’s name and she seemed to shake where she stood. The way her feet seemed to carry her in the direction of her daughter’s room before remembering, stalling, stumbling in place. The way he caught her hunched over Joe in the hospital wing, weeping into her knees with his fingers clutched in one hand, the goodbye Cammie left them in the other.

Looking at his girlfriend’s face, it wasn’t hard to tell that her mind had jumped to the same thoughts.

“Your mom hasn’t lost you Cam, you’re fine.”

Shaking her head, she smiled at him, the pain of agonising over whatever distress she caused her mom still present in her eyes. “How do you do that? How do you always know what I’m thinking.”

I don’t.

If he did, he never would’ve left her alone that summer, never would’ve left her to run off without him. If he did, he would’ve been brave enough to ask her out properly long before he actually managed to. If he did, he wouldn’t spend half his time worrying that she finally realised she was too good for him.

Still, it was nice to know that Cammie thought he could read her mind.

Smirking at her, he just pointed to himself with the arm not wrapped around her. “Spy.” Cammie laughed, throwing her head back in glee. He loved her laugh, loved that despite everything she had gone through, everything his own mother put her through, she still found the strength to laugh so freely. In awe of the woman before him, he moved closer towards her, leant his forehead against hers, pressed his lips to hers and whispered softly against them. “I know you Gallagher Girl.”

She smiled, rubbed her nose against his before moving away. Turning the page agin, she traced the image of her parents trapped in a world before she existed. “It’s a wonder spies have kids at all, knowing they could follow in their footsteps, knowing they could lose them like that. Really makes you think…” Her voice trailed off again, eyes staring deep into his.

Suddenly he remembered their conversation in the moment after he learned Townsend was his father. How he told her he didn’t want kids, wouldn’t want to mess them up like his mother did him. He meant it at the time. He thinks he still means it now. He’s only 18, but he can’t imagine ever knowing anything about being a dad, can’t imagine ever having someone to learn it from, can’t imagine ever risking fucking it all up. Still, looking at Cammie now, how beautiful she looked covered in dust and half concealed by darkness, hiding amongst memories that weren’t hers and ruminating on a future that might be, he couldn’t help but wonder if maybe one day he might change his mind.

Blinking the thoughts away, he instead shot her a self-deprecating gin, tilted his head into the hand that cupped his cheek. “Reckon my parents would disagree.”

Cammie shook her head at him, ignored the existence of his mother and focussed on the on parent they both kind of liked. “You and Townsend have been getting along!” Thumb soothing up and down his face, she leant forward again and pressed their foreheads together, whispering softly. “He cares about you Zach, really. He’s a good guy.”

Zach just shrugged. “It’s still not the same.”

Sure, Townsend was a decent guy. Zach knew now that he didn’t know Zach was his for the first 18 years of his life, knew that he would’ve done something about it if he had. And he guesses the man cares about him, as much as he seemed to care about anyone that wasn’t Abby at least. But it still wasn’t the same, the man was never going to love him the way Cammie’s parents loved her. Zach was never going to get that.

Looking back down at the photo album, he studied the pictures of her parents again.

“You look a lot like him.” She blinked at him, casting her gaze briefly back to the photo album before looking back at him. Her eyes looked misty again. “Both of them actually, but more him.”

Sniffling, Cammie just shrugged, tone mimicking his self-deprecation from earlier. “Not having as many of the Cameron genes certainly helps the whole Chameleon thing.”

Zach knew she thought of herself as plain, as average, as indistinguishable. Knew she felt unremarkable compared to her mother’s side of the family. He thought it was ridiculous. From the moment he met her he knew she’d be the face he remembered for the rest of time. She was the most stunning person he knew. It amazed him that she couldn’t see that.

Running a finger down her cheek, cupping it in his hand, his other arm moving to wrap around her waist, pulling her body into his, he dropped his voice to a whisper. “You always stick out in a crowd to me Gallagher Girl.”

And he kissed her.

Immediately intoxicated by the taste of her, he groaned into her mouth even as he felt her smile against him. They moved together in rhythm, pushing and pulling at one another in a familiar dance of passion. His hand ran from her face to her hair, dislodging the braid that it sat in and running his fingers through the waves of it, nails scratching against her scalp as her own fingers began tickling across his chest. Breaking apart briefly for air, he smirked at her, closing in again to nibble slightly at her lower lip, the breathy whimper that he was met with making his toes curl. Zach was desperate for her. He was just about to lean her backwards to the floor of the attic, press his body on top of hers so he could feel every inch of her when-

“Cameron Ann Morgan! If you and your boyfriend aren’t down here in 5 minutes I’m going to assume you’re doing something inappropriate in the family home and come up there with the intention of removing his skull from his body.”

They sprung apart at the resounding boom of Abby’s voice coming from directly below them, Cammie giggling silently against his lips as he gaped in mock outrage.

Remove my skull from my body? He mouthed at her.

At least it’s just your skull? She mouthed in return.

Winking at her, he grinned and moved his lips silently again, heart filled with light. I knew I was growing on her.

Mrs Morgan’s voice sounded from even further below, what sounded like another floor separating the two sisters. “Abby I told you to go get them not to threaten them!”

“I only threatened one of them! Besides, I’m doing you a favour Rach, trust me.” Voice switching from defensive and amused as she addressed her sister to firm yet teasing as she yelled up at them, Abby rapped her knuckles against the wall as she continued. “Now quit making eyes at each other and get down here squirt, your mom’s too uptight to be a grandmother before she’s 50!”

“Hey!”

Cammie shook her head at him, giggling as he tried to dejectedly lay his head against her shoulder, tried to hide the flush that crept its way up his face. A matching red hue had taken over her cheeks and her neck as she pushed him off her and made her way to the hatch of the attic, poking her head out to speak to her aunt.

“You realise I currently share a wall with you and Townsend right? Talk about inappropriate.”

“Ew Cam. Seriously?” Zach muttered under his breath. He may not think of the guy as his dad, but he also didn’t need to be thinking of him like that.

“Get down here Kiddo, before your aunt gives Townsend a stroke with all the baby talk.”

Cammie swung her legs out of the attic in response to her mom’s voice, a steadying hand reaching up to help her before she turned back to Zach. “You coming?”

“Be with you in a second.”

Studying him for a moment before nodding in ascent, Cammie left him to it.

In the dark silence that remained, he took a deep breath. All at once, he remembered another attic, darker and colder somehow, where instead of photo albums and memories of a good man, it held only weapons and files and tools and misery. He remembered the loneliness that lived in his veins when that attic sat above him, how there wasn’t a room he walked into where he didn’t feel scared and small. He thought about the people in the house below him. The man who was trying to be his father and the man who taught him how to be a man. The woman who had gone out on a limb to trust him and the woman who had gone out on a limb to keep him safe. He thought about the girl who brought him to life, who erased any trace of loneliness from his blood, any sense of cold from his life.

He smiled.

———————————————————————

Authors note:

A little late but the longest instalment yet! Mostly Zammie, as per @gildengirl and @bryn-not-brynn’s request, but also a healthy dose of Zach ruminating on the weird little family situation he’s found himself in.

[honeyannaglass]

Oh. Oh no. OH NO. NO.