Rachel Cameron & Zachary Goode
It’s been like four years at this point, and I still have way too many thoughts about these books and Rachel’s and Zach’s relationship. (ft. a lot of cammie) (
As proven by @averagejoesolomon, Joe totally set up Cammie and Zach. The only one who remains oblivious to the fact that it was intentional is Cammie. Rachel knows, Abby knows, Bex, Liz, and Macey, heck even Jonas and Grant knows. Really, it’s ridiculous.
Rachel figures it out pretty early on and just gives Joe this Look, because Cammie definitely doesn’t need any more boy-related issues in her life, and she can tell from miles away that Zach is Trouble™.
She doesn’t stop Joe though, because Zach is charming for a 16-year old, and he is basically Joe’s kid and Joe wouldn’t do it if it was a bad idea, she decides.
It is a bad idea, tho, so Rachel settles for “Joe wouldn’t do it if it was a really bad idea,” and lets him carry on whatever game he’s playing. Doesn’t mean she has to like it, though it does prove entertaining watching Cam and Zach give each other a hard time during Blackthorne’s visit.
Then DC happens and Rachel hates how this kid shows up everywhere. Sure, he’s got sources and might actually be able to get cammie to listen (not really, tho: Cameron Morgan does whatever the hell she wants, and when again did we let her get this headstrong, Matt?), but he’s still so young and shouldn’t he be in school, Joe?
But Joe vouches for him and really, they need all the eyes they can get on a girl with Cammie’s abilities to disappear at the most inconvenient times, and Zach proves rather good at it. (Also keeping her alive on more than one occasion, thank god.)
But then Cammie’s gone, gone, gone, and all there’s left is this stupid report and Rachel really does hate Zach for a brief moment. It’s not his fault, not really, but Joe’s comatose and Rachel needs to blame someone.
And then Zach and Bex goes missing, two of the people Cammie loves most in this world, run off to god knows where and Rachel wants to hit something. Instead, she cries when both of them return on the first day of school, the hole in their hearts matching the one in hers.
She and Zach don’t talk, but they drink tea together in silence when they visit Joe, still sleeping in the belly of the Academy. On sundays she sometimes finds a cold plate of food left on the desk in her office and she does not wonder who left it there. The trail is cold, has been for weeks, but though silent in their grief, neither is willing to give up hope.
Then Cameron shows up out of nowhere, her memory as broken as her body (and her mind even more so), a shell of herself. The new underclassmen stares, Bex is angry, and Rachel cries.
In an unguarded moment by Joe’s bedside, both of them off duty while Cammie is with her roommates, Rachel lets herself hug Zach. Because even though he grew up fast and has probably spent more time in the field than many senior operatives, he is still just a kid, his two favourite people either asleep or losing herself in the mansion’s hidden hallways.
(They never talk about it, though it does happen from time to time as the years pass by. Though perplexed the first time, Zach finds that he isn’t entirely discomfited by it.)
It’s not exactly surprising that Zach disappears the same morning Cammie was sent off to Rome, but Rachel wants to strangle him anyway. She calls Abby, telling her to expect him (and hopes that maybe Abby will do the hard work, though she wouldn’t put it past Bex or Macey either.)
(His ability to show up at Cammie’s side at the most convenient times is a neat trick, she does admit in the quiet of her deserted office.)
Joe introducing Cammie and Zach to each other might have been all kinds of reckless, but Rachel knows that in protecting her daughter, she could find no better ally than Zachary Goode.
(we were robbed, im just saying.)
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