Gone

I now stand in front of the class, with my back to them, giving a lecture on the various targets of espionage, writing key terms on the board as I go. I have the full attention of the girls, and call on names as I go. Yet, I find that empty desk in the corner of my eye exceedingly distracting. It's been empty for almost two months. Two months, in which we have heard nothing of her and despite our best efforts and those of other intelligence agencies around the world, we haven't been able to find her. That's because she doesn't want to be found." I tell to myself and pray it to be true.

She is good, Matthew good, but that is of little comfort at the moment, knowing (or better, not knowing) how Matt had ended up, doing what Cammie was now trying to do. She is as stubborn as her father.

Yet, what brought me some comfort was the fact that she had managed to stay off the grid for so long. I just hoped she could keep it that way if it made her safe. I don't think I could bear to lose yet another Morgan. Thinking about this I soon realized I couldn't go on with the lesson, not with my voice in danger of breaking, not in front of the girls.I catch Bex's eyes, who is surveiling me constantly. I can't go on. I stopped my incessant lecture and turned to face them.

"This is all for today ladies. Class dismissed."

Tina raises her hand, not wanting to hear the question, I replied.

"No homework either." And as the good spies-in-training they are, they don't let show how much this perplexes them. I turn before they had started to shuffle away and made a show of cleaning the board.

Then emotion overtakes me, in sudden waves of grief, my senses close out, tuning out anything that is not related to my dizzying grief. I lay my hands on my desk, fighting the impending darkness and all of a sudden I call to mind Matt's words "Seems like your only weakness is you tough exterior." He'd say, because after a while of closing myself to much emotions I'd have to break down at some point or another, and somehow, usually it was Matt who saw me at the moments in which I was at my weakest, but there was no embarrassment there, because he knew exactly what I was feeling, because he went through it too, and somehow, it was worst for him, because he had a wife and a daughter to return to. A wife and a daughter he never came back to, and now I had failed to protect that daughter.

My knees go weak -an after effect of the weeks in a coma- and I stumble into my chair and covered my face with my hands as the grief gave way to bitter tears. I'd give anything to have Cammie here and safe with me, hold her in my arms like I had done several months ago, protect her, instruct her and prepare her for the life she shouldn't be facing now. I fight to control myself, unaware of anything else until I hear her voice.

"It's going to be ok, sir," she says, her voice low but confident and I turn to see Bex standing beside my desk, I sigh, taking a deep breath, refusing to meet her eyes. How could I make such a mistake, of not closing the door? Wasn't that the reason I dismissed the class, so that the girls would see me in such a moment of weakness? There's no point denying it, so I dare meet her eyes, and see understanding and compassion in them, but still, she shouldn't be here.

"Ms. Baxter I dismissed the class." I let her know, cringing at how my voice breaks, I place my face in my hands, embarrassed and fighting the fatigue, I hear her shuffling in her bag for a moment, wondering why she doesn't leaves when I hear the tearing of paper.

"Here Sir," She offers, forcing me to look up at her and the opened bag of M&Ms in her hands. I just stare at them, still wondering why I haven't clearly asked her to leave. When she sees I don't move to grab them, she slowly grabs my hand and tilts the M&Ms unto it.

"Eat them, Sir. You need a bit of sugar,"she commands and knowing I don't really have an option, and that they'll really do me good I start to munch on them, as Rebbecca pulls over my stool and seats across me, having seeminly forgotten she is a student, and thus had other classes to attend, which I have a duty to remind her.

"Are you not getting late for your," I scrunch my eyes, trying to recall the insignificant detail that is her next class, "-for your Protection and Enforcement class?" I recall and see as she struggles to come up with and answer-an excuse, the teacher in me corrects.

"Yes, but-I know my priorities." She says assertively, and something in the easy tone she uses touches me, and I'm aware I should be strong for her, but here she is, comforting me.

I look at her, at the strong young women she's today, and I recall the time when I first met her, standing in the autumn chill of London, a young girl still, but so sure of herself, so sure of the people she loved. During the plane ride, she wasn't nervous at all and she did not flirt with, me unlike almost every other girl I met here. She had an easy smile around her parents and in the plane an aloofness that might have told anyone who saw her that she was just another teen girl traveling with a magazine in hand.

I remember her surprise as I asked about Cammie, how she looked at me, studying me, debating whether or not she should divulge information to a possible enemy. I had smiled my warm smile, but she didn't take it.

So she had just given me the basics, "She's a great girl, great student, great spy and pavement artist, and my very best friend." She had said, the last part in a threatening tone, as if warning me not to hurt her, before turning back to the magazine that appeared to be a teen girl magazine, but was in fact a covered Espionage Today magazine.

"She's going to be okay, you know, she's going to come back." She says, changing the subject, and the condfident way she says it, is the same way she might comment have said "Ditching P&E is no big deal"

"Why aren't you worried Ms. Baxter?" I'm compelled to ask. She's Cammie's best friend, she is the person who knows Cammie the best, yet she doesn't seem worried at all,

"Because, she was thought by the very best." She replies, giving me a michievous wink.

"She'll be back, you'll see" she says, getting up from the stool, placing the half –full bag of M&M on my desk, and accomodating my stool and turning to leave.

"Oh, and sir?" she asks by the door.

"Yes, Ms. Baxter?"

"Don't underestimate her, because they won't." She tells me before walking out unto the hall.

The End

This is the last chapter I apologize for the long wait. I must let you know the two reasons I wrote this story. They were: 1) I couldn't get enough of Mr. Solomon and 2) I needed to kill time up until the release of GG5, and since that has come around I trust Ally Carter will deliver to us the story better than I ever possibly could. Thanks so much to all of you who Reviewed, Favorited and Alerted this story, all those notifications in my inbox meant a lot to me.