warnings for series: mentions of alcohol/being drunk, mentions of violence/blood imagery (with warnings for specific chapters), mentions of anxiety and depression symptoms (with warnings for specific chapters), swearing - please do not read if you may find any of this triggering and take care of yourself.
“The proverbial saying ‘All’s fair in love and war’ expresses the idea that, like war, where any strategy is accepted, affairs of the heart are also no-holds-barred contests.”
Chapter One:
“Your mission, should you choose to accept is-“
Groans fill the room and Rebecca Baxter rolls her eyes at everyone. An amber bottle pressed to her lips as she nudges his shoulder. A silent, ‘Can you believe them? They’re absolutely no fun.’
Zachary Goode snickers into his own beer, a silent response of ‘No, you’re just overly dramatic as usual and Cam has probably had too many glasses of wine for this.’
“Alright, alright, fine.” Bex waves her hands and to look at him fully. “Truth or Dare? Clock’s ticking Goode.”
Maybe it’s the way he hasn’t felt this light in a long time - maybe ever, that they’re all together again for it too. Summer evening wind blows at his hair that’s gotten a little too long. From their spot on the porch, he can hear the hum of crickets and cicadas, smell the familiar scent of leaves that are ready to turn for Autumn in the air. He doesn’t even have shoes on, he can’t remember the last time he didn’t feel the need to be ready to go. Or it could be the way his heart does this funny thing of swelling and aching in the same beat when Cam blows hair off of her cheek, giggling like she’s eighteen again as Liz pours more wine.
Or maybe he’s just drunk.
“Truth.”
Yeah, definitely just drunk.
The entire circle falls silent, cups and bottles half suspended to parted lips, laughter trails off as eyes widen. Every single one of them can hear each other’s heartbeats, the distinct ping of water from the faucet hitting ceramic inside and down the hall, and the ticking of the clock just inside the dining room.
Cammie sits up straighter, wiping at her lips. “What?”
Bex sits back against the porch column hard. Liz props up on her knees - clearly criss cross applesauce is too child’s play for what’s at stake here. Macey narrows her eyes at him from her spot on the couch above the other two girls as she tosses back the rest of her wine. Even Preston and Jonas look at him with furrows forming above their brows.
Jesus, they’re all so dramatic.
He rolls his eyes and turns to Bex. “You gonna ask me the question or not?”
“But you, you never pick-“ she looks around the group and he marks the date in his calendar. Rebecca Baxter has been rendered speechless and actually physically appears frazzled as she drums her fingers on her knees and looks at the stars. “I mean, what do I ask? I never thought I’d actually get the chance.”
Cammie narrows her eyes and points at him, “Ask him where he hid the M&M’s because I know he did.”
Zach grins, blowing her a kiss that she rolls her eyes at but smiles into her wine glass because of nonetheless.
Bex waves off the suggestion, not serious enough of course. She snaps her fingers and Macey moves to the edge of the couch cushion. “Oh! Private jet and the Russians!”
Bex counters, “Finland, embassy with the Duchess?”
Cammie laughs, “Idaho, potato farmer?”
Jonas shakes his head. “Nah, don’t waste it on that one, I have pictures.”
Zach makes a mental note about finding and deleting those, beginning to hum the jeopardy theme song. He’s definitely drunk, because he should have been noticing the one girl who was far too silent. He should have known that when Elizabeth Sutton is quiet, that means she’s thinking big things.
“What about when he fell in love with Cammie?” The question is calculated, lazy almost in her tone, but it catches him off guard and Liz is far to perceptive to let it slip. His eyes widened, pupils dilating. His breath changed just so, stuck in his throat. His heart rate increased. Damn stupid beer he was never drinking ever again.
The two men opposite him groan at the suggestion and the four women turn on him. Hawk eyes, lioness’ stalking their prey. He was done for the minute the question was suggested. He has one of two options as he sees it now. Lie his ass off to the room of people who know all of his tells or plead with the love of his life.
Zach shakes his head, staring directly at Cammie. “Cammie, no, please don’t make me talk about this in front of everyone? You hate attention, it’s complicated and-“
She hums into her wine glass interrupting him, “I dunno, Zach, I think high school Cammie really needs some answers. You messed with her head quite a bit.”
Shit, bad move. Should have lied right away - ‘I loved Cammie the minute I laid eyes on her in that DC mall. Truly love at first sight, I just had to figure out who that Gallagher Girl really was’ is not gonna cut it now, they’re far too hungry for juicy gossip like they’re back in school.
“We’re married!” He holds up his left hand to prove the point, grasping at anything to make this all go away. Zach gestures out the entrance of the porch, “Our children are asleep down the hall!”
Cam only levels him with a look he’s grown to know very well. It’s the look she gives the kids when they lie and say they brushed their teeth before bed. He’s busted.
Liz stands, the girl closing in on him until his back hits the porch railing. She nudges his chest as she speaks so threateningly for someone with ducks all over their pajama’s. “Spill, or I get the truth serum.”
“You know, I forget that you’re the scariest one of the bunch sometimes Lizzie,” he gulps as Jonas cackles from his spot on the ground.
The four girls simply raise their eyebrows, and he admits defeat. His hands lift to the air beside his head. “Okay, okay, but I need another beer for this.”
Giddy with their victory, everyone settles into comfortable positions, eager to not let him get away with anything but a good and long story.
Zach avoids the creak of the floorboard as he heads into the kitchen, listening intently for the sounds of his children stirring at all. His hip hits the fridge closed in just the right spot, pulling the opener from it’s drawer.
He looks at the fridge as he leans against the counter, a picture of him and Cam in front of Gallagher on the day of Rachel and Joe’s wedding held up by a hand painted magnet. Red splotchy paint covering the words ‘World’s Best Dad’ glazed and shiny from a kiln. It’s not that he doesn’t know when he fell in love with her, he does, it’s just not so simple.
The bottle cap pops off with a hiss, then a click of it hitting the counter. He watches the green metal spin, slowing as it gets closer to meeting the flat surface of the countertop.
“Goode!”
Zach snatches the copper coin he’d been spinning against the tabletop before it flattens and stands, hands held into fists behind his back at attention.
An armed guard with flushed cheeks and a forehead dappled with sweat marches towards him.
Oh swell, it’s Jeff.
At Blackthorne, any guard calling your name in that tone isn’t gonna be great, but Jeff has this way of spitting when he talks, of not realizing what the words personal space mean, and probably has never ever heard of breath mints and their miraculous powers to ward off coffee breath.
Zach’s fingers fiddle with the coin behind his back. He’s getting better about the whole restless energy and showing it thing, but he figures it’s not dire circumstances to be on his game right now. His mind wanders through the possibilities of what today could be about. One of his bedsheet corners wasn’t tight enough, someone found the little yellow package of chocolaty goodness in his sock, or perhaps Jeff didn’t get his coffee and donut this morning and he just feels like picking on someone.
The cafeteria grows more silent as everyone decides that the show that’s about to go down has got to be better than eating the mystery meat on their trays.
“Sir?” Zach questions, staring at the spot just above Jeff’s left ear. A thing Jeff positively hates, causing him to continuously look over his shoulder and wonder what the hell Zach is staring at - but a thing that fills Zach with a small amount of joy.
It’s the little things.
Jeff does just this, head whipping around so fast he’s surprised the man doesn’t give himself whiplash. Jeff’s gaze darts across the wall and back to Zach. Beady, narrowed eyes meet his, Zach’s lips twitch slightly, revealing too much - another thing he’s still working on. But Jeff is fairly harmless and hasn’t quite mastered the art of interpreting Zach’s smaller tells.
“Visitors,” Jeff snarls and Zach’s shoulders fall.
Fuck.
The room grows even more silent, the quiet din of metal silverware hitting their trays and cups hitting wood vanish completely now as the unmistakable red head of hair floats through the cafeteria towards him. Shoulders straighten, voices cease, and breaths are held with each click then clack of black pumps against the concrete floors.
His mother is here, and she’s brought friends.
“Hello darling, miss me?”
Catherine Goode commands attention, she just does. A room full of hormone crazed teenage boys was already going to be acutely aware of a woman wearing a black dress accentuating her curves walking amongst them, they were already going to stare, Zach knows this. But Catherine has something else, the strong voice of a soldier mixed with a soft femininity enveloping each word she speaks, making you think each word is somehow meant only for you. A perfect way to get what she wants that he’s seen in action enough times to know she’s mastered skillfully. Her loss ratio is zero, she has the control every time.
For everyone except her son.
“Can’t say that I have, Cat.” Zach presses the coin between his thumb and forefinger, the indent of Abraham Lincoln surely going to be preserved in his fingerprint forever. He knows it’s a shot in the dark. Sometimes she’s pleasantly surprised by his resistance, dare he say almost impressed. But most times, it ends poorly for him.
Catherine Goode’s eyes - his eyes - narrow, her playfulness disappearing with an art that Houdini would envy. “That’s no way to talk to your mother, Zachary. Let’s go. I have people I need to introduce you to and we have something important to discuss.”
She gestures to the men behind her as she speaks, before stepping closer. Her head dips - like a snake ready to attack. He visualizes it perfectly before it happens, a hand wraps around his bicep, squeezing. Not in a loving, motherly way, but in a warning - strike one. Her voice lowers as she hisses, “Behave,” while fingernails dig into his skin leaving small crescent moons. The snake is playing with it’s food before it tightens it’s coil and removes his oxygen.
“Yes, ma’am.” He grinds his teeth, jaw clenching as the toes of his boots tap together when he straightens to formal attention again.
She smiles, satisfied with his submission and pats his cheek a little too harshly before turning on her heels and clicking away. Her fingers curl behind her head as she walks. “Gentleman.” Then they waggle out to the faces of the cafeteria in a wave, “Boys.”
He hates that he ducks his head, that he follows her blindly. His gut twists as he counts the cracks in the concrete he already knows the number of, knowing that if he were to lift his head, his classmates - if you can even call them that - would be looking at him with eyes full of pity. Sometimes he envies the ones who have nothing, it has to be better than her. But then, it’s like she knows he’ll have a thought like this. She’ll do something almost nice, she’ll make him feel guilty. How dare he wish he didn’t have her, there were good times once upon a time right?
He shakes his head, no, this is what she wants. He simply follows, choosing to hold his chin up in defiance of any pity that he can feel hitting the back of his uniform as he walks out of the cafeteria.
The men she’s brought follow closely behind her. Suits. Not terribly expensive, they’re not big deals. One is slightly taller, a thick brown mustache. This man watches his mother with sharp blue eyes, he’s not fully under her spell it would seem. As Catherine smiles and gestures into a door, the man nods and enters. The slightly younger and shorter one gestures for Zach to enter first. He’s blonde, strong shoulders, with brown eyes that look at Zach in a way that makes him feel like he’s under a microscope. This man closes the door and stands in front of it and Zach would bet his next few meals that he was Secret Service.
Mustache man sits with a groan loudly in a chair as his mother leans up against a low bookshelf. A fairly empty classroom that wasn’t used much these days. While the weather was nice, it was strictly outside for use of the range, running drills, and perimeter and mountain trail runs. Classroom time was for the bitterly cold days that even the teachers and guards knew wasn’t worth making the boys get frostbite over. Catherine fiddles with a cup of pencils, a finger swiping over the top of the shelf and leaving a streak of clean wood in its wake as her mouth pinches in disgust.
Lovely place you send me to school, huh, mom?
“Well, Zach,” mustache man’s voice is gravely, it leads Zach to believe the man used to smoke. The fact mingles with the face in his brain, a connection trying to surface to the forefront of it. Mustache man continues while holding his hand up at a height not too tall, “You’ve grown! You weren’t more than ye high last time I saw you I think.”
Zach’s always hated this greeting. What was a person supposed to say back to that? Thank you? That’s how time and puberty works? That’s what happens when you get three meals a day and stop wondering when the next one will be?
He mashes his lips together in a thin smile with a nod. He’s pretty sure that was a better move than opening it and saying any of that.
The man looks to Secret Service man and then his mother before giving another nod. “Right, well, you must be wondering what we’re here for.”
No, I love being humiliated by my mother in front of groups of people and then following her and two strangers into a dusty classroom to sit in silence, dude. I live for it, it’s my shit.
Again, not saying that, so he remains silent. Mustache man claps his hands together, looking to his mother for further instruction so it would seem. She smiles at Zach, her salesman one - the one he knows she pulls out when she really wants her way.
“Darling, these men, they have a proposition for you. A mission.”
He stands up a little straighter, unable to help himself at the word mission. A real mission? Involving his mother? The men furrow their brows slightly as Catherine continues and his apprehension and curiosity fight bay-blades style in his head - whirling around and knocking edges, unsure of who’s going to pull out in the lead just yet.
“They need some information. Some information that they think only you may be able to get for them.”
Zach waits, knowing his mother is just getting started. She’s setting a trap, complimenting him, loosening some stones in his closed off exterior, weakening it until it’s ready for a final strike. He rolls the grooved edge of the coin between his thumb and forefinger.
Catherine walks along the wall, her hands clasped behind her back. Her heels click against the tile, gaze lost on the tattered map hung on the wall. She leans in, feigning inspection as she speaks again. Her tone somehow lazy but dripping with an authoritative quality that when combined, made you lean in and feel the need to listen carefully. “As you’ve most likely come to know in your training, it’s important, in some missions, to get close to a subject. To have a relationship with them, to make them an asset.”
The mustached man cut in, “An asset is-“
“A person within organizations who provide information to outside sources. Yeah, I know.”
“Zachary.”
Warning number two, he won’t be given a third.
Silence fills the room again at her sharp use of his name. Zach’s head bows and the other two men focus on her - it’s her happy place, he knows this. She controls the room, two grown men with their entire attention fully on her and her son’s submission, she’d bask in it like it was the sun on the beach for hours if she had the time.
Zach begins to flip the coin, impatient for the details of how this all affects him, what exactly it is he’s being asked here. He watches the coin arc in the air and land in his hand several times, waiting for her big finish.
Her slender and skilled fingers intercept the coin on his next toss. Her green eyes hold his and this time, even he can’t deny them as she delivers his very first official mission.
Why do you think Ally just forget about grant and jonas after cmh (haha sorry maybe I was just bitter that like Cammie, I felt like when they appeared in UWS again, it was an alternate universe where zach had friends :D)
It was an alternate universe. Zach had to invent multidimensional travel to grab a new Grant and Jonas so he looked like he actually had friends besides the girls
I genuinely do not know and it could have to do with Cammie herself.
Like sure Camster isn't that thickheaded (okay just a lot but it protects her from the head trauma) but Cammie didn't really focus on Grant and Jonas mostly because she was busy dealing with spy-pigtail-puller Zachary Goode (he's such an annoyance I love him)
We only ever hear about Grant and Jonas in very small hiccups of information like idk Grant being hot and Liz talking about Jonas and Grant being hot and someone vaguely mentioning Jonas' name and Grant being hot (you get the point, he's a sexy lamp)
They might've had a bigger role in drafts but that would've also either taken away from Zammie or had a higher page count than what Ally was aiming for
There could've been a whole deleted scene of Cammie thinking she fell through the multiverse and crash landed on a planet where Rebecca Baxter didn't know how to talk to a boy or even a small Liz and Cammie scene where Liz admits to liking the new, feeling a little bit like a normal girl when in truth she's never been anywhere near normal, even before she became a Gallagher Girl but something just feeling off
We'll never know honestly why Grant and Jonas fell if the face of the earth or why there weren't scenes of them in OTGSY helping Zach and the CPS infiltrate Blackthrone or even just getting more of the boys just being traumatized boys and not knowing how to wear ties right or Grant hating sleeves or Jonas being unused to so many layers and sweating a ton.
