Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

From the time we are young, we are taught that there are enemies among us. We must always be vigilant, we must never trust anyone. Any friend can be a wolf in sheep's clothing. Any confidante can turn your words against you. Every day is a tactical mission, and the people who live to see tomorrow are the ones who see the most, hear the most, know the most, and neutralize any threats before they ever have a chance to gain the upper hand.

It's only later that we learn the truth. The monsters are real, but they are so much closer than we ever anticipated. As it turns out, they've been training us since the beginning, waiting until we grew into a weapon they could use.

You would think that once we realized their true nature, it would be easy to escape, but it doesn't quite work that way. By the time we've seen the monster for what it truly is, there is nowhere left to run. We are tied together, bound by sixteen years of shared secrets. And even though we both now know those secrets to be lies, the bond of that shared history is an even stronger connection than the blood that runs in both our veins.

So when the monster calls in the middle of the night, we answer, even though we know we shouldn't. When the monster asks for a favor, we agree to help it, because we know we don't really have any choice in the matter. If there's one thing we've learned, it's that the monster always gets its way.

And this time, the monster's way involves a botched kidnapping in Alaska, a new student, and a blood debt it's been waiting fifteen years to collect.

We feel the gears of the monster's plan turning, moving us forward without our consent or participation. But it's rage carries us onward, until we are simply cogs in the monster's violent machine.

And then the conversation is over. The line is dead. But the nightmare is only beginning.

Chapter Text

Madeleine Manchester hadn't attended a real school in more than six years. There weren't a lot of real schools in Alaska, and certainly not in the part where Maddie had lived. The only other children for miles had been bear cubs and moose calves, and Maddie figured it was probably for the best that Alaska's wildlife remained illiterate.

The first thing that struck Maddie about the Gallagher Academy was the noise. A cacophony of voices accosted her the moment she crossed the threshold, crashing over her like a wave. Maddie hadn't heard such a racket in a long time, and she felt herself involuntarily shrink into the side of the boy beside her.

But about 13 seconds later, the din of voices fell to a hush, as every pair of eyes in the entrance hall, and even those on the balcony above, came to rest on Maddie.

Well, not Maddie, exactly. Every pair of eyes landed on Logan Mitchell, Maddie's companion, who also happened to be the President's son. And who could blame them? Logan was tall and broad-shouldered and lanky and dark-haired and handsome. Objectively handsome, Maddie reminded herself. It's not like she was thinking about that.

No, the reality was that the 143 pairs of eyes were focused on Logan. Logan was the only boy to have crossed the threshold of the Gallagher Academy for Exceptional Young Women in many, many years. But he was also Maddie's best friend, and had been since they met during President Mitchell's campaign seven years earlier.

Maddie drew herself up to her full five feet four inches and squared her shoulders. She adjusted a 68-pound duffle bag over her shoulder and tried to look intimidating. She'd been told before that she was pretty good at it. But the students of the Gallagher Academy took intimidating to a whole new level.

The Gallagher Academy wasn't just another fancy boarding school nestled in the hills of Virginia outside a small town with a population of 2,000 and no public transportation. The Gallagher Academy was a boarding school for spies.

"Ladies," Michael Manchester said calmly. "Enough with the staring. At least find a reflective surface to look at. We're all professionals here, after all."

Michael Manchester was a professional of ever there had been one. A former Navy Seal, who had transitioned to the Secret Service and became the head of the President's security detail for many years, Maddie's father was the kind of calm Maddie wanted to be as he surveyed the entry hall of the Gallagher Academy. Except for one arm that was still in a sling, you would never know he'd almost been killed by a Russian crime boss in Alaska less than six months ago.

Unless you were Maddie, of course.

143 pairs of eyes turned away, but Maddie could still sense their lingering gaze. And she still felt like she was about to jump out of her skin.

"Come on," Maddie's dad said, smiling. "Let's get you officially enrolled, so you have time to settle in before your welcome dinner."

It's just like every other school, Maddie repeated the words in her head like a mantra as she followed her father, but nothing about them felt true.

The headmistress's office was full of light, gently drifting through cathedral style stained glass windows in modern patterns. Three chairs, a small desk, and a microwave oven on a bookshelf were the only other furnishings, and Maddie got the impression that Rachel Morgan - Solomon didn't spend a lot of time in her office anymore.

"Welcome to Gallagher, Ms. Manchester!" Headmistress Morgan said warmly, gesturing Maddie and Logan to sit. "And Mr. Mitchell," she nodded. "I trust you'll both like it here."

Maddie was silent as she concentrated on remaining composed. The deafening roar of voices was slightly muffled by the door of the headmistress's office, though not nearly as much as Maddie would have expected. You wanted this, she chanted softly in her head. This is exactly what you wanted.

When Maddie had lived in Alaska she had wished for nothing more than to be back in a normal environment at a real school. But she'd spent almost every day of the last six years alone, and the juxtaposition with her current environment was jarring to say the least. Maddie strongly suspected that, at the Gallagher Academy, she would never be alone.

Maddie's father must have sensed her trepidation, because he placed a firm, reassuring hand on her shoulder as the Headmistress continued. And Maddie had to admit she was glad for it.

"Now, Maddie, I know you've had a lot of real-world practical experience already, but whenever we have transfer students here, we do mandate that they start at an introductory level for most of their classes. I have no doubt that you'll catch up with your peers very quickly, but for right now, you'll be attending almost all your classes with our eighth grade students. Our professors are aware of your circumstances, and will make recommendations directly to me when they feel that you're ready to move up."

Maddie nodded, as she tried not to squirm at the thought of being the only sixteen-year-old in a class of girls three years younger.

"And Logan," the Headmistress continued. "I'm sure you're aware that your presence here is a special favor to your parents, and a decision that was made for the purpose of keeping your location confidential. As the Gallagher Academy is self-contained and full of experienced covert professionals, you won't have a secret service detail on our grounds. However, you will be assigned secret service agents any time you leave this campus."

So do not leave this campus. Rachel Morgan might not have said the words, but they were clearly implied.

Maddie wondered how it must feel to constantly have people telling you where you could go and with whom. She knew that, in part, Logan had brought this on himself. Logan had slipped his security detail so many times that his parents had shipped him off to live with the Manchesters in Alaska, where he managed to be kidnapped by a Russian terrorist. He didn't have a great track record when it came to keeping himself safe, and the President was running out of places to hide him. Both the President and Headmistress Morgan must have concluded that, in a school full of girl spies in training and former covert government operatives, more eyes would be on Logan than ever before, and no one would speak a word about it. Or, they had simply given up.

"You'll continue to participate in your remote education from our library. As you might expect, we will be monitoring your online activity so that we can ensure there won't be any more 'Twitter incidents.'"

Maddie thought she could see Headmistress Morgan forcing back a smile when she raised her hands in illustrative finger quotes, as if the idea that her Protectee might attempt to Tweet out the location of the Gallagher Academy was amusing to her.

"Logan, you'll be staying in our faculty wing, and Maddie, you've been assigned to a suite with three other sophomores." Headmistress Morgan slid two keys across the table to their respective owners, and stood in a quiet act of dismissal. "Our welcome dinner begins at 18:30. That should give you plenty of time to get settled. Maddie, your classes begin first thing tomorrow."

And then Maddie arrived at the moment she had anticipated for weeks with both fear and excitement.

"Mad Dog," her father said quietly. "You know I'm only a phone call away if you need me." Maddie knew it wasn't quite that simple, but she appreciated the sentiment. "You belong here, Maddie," Mr. Manchester continued. "You've always belonged here."

There was something in her father's voice that Maddie didn't quite recognize, a pang of guilt or regret. Something that didn't fit with the Michael Manchester Maddie knew. And after so many years in Alaska alone, if Maddie didn't know her father, she didn't know anyone.

Michael Manchester pulled his daughter in for a hug, easily navigating around his sling, and kissed her forehead. Then he pulled away and smiled, and Maddie wondered if what she thought she had seen moments earlier had just been in her imagination.

And then he was gone, and Maddie was alone. At least, as alone as someone could be in a school of one-hundred and twenty-four young women and one President's son.

Maddie's eyes shifted to Logan, who had turned away from her about 75 degrees but was still watching her in his peripheral vision. She squared her shoulders and lifted her chin. It was time to face her destiny head-on. "I'll see you at dinner," she told Logan, confidently. And then she started up the grand staircase toward her suite, leaving a somewhat befuddled sixteen year old boy in her wake.

Chapter Text

When Maddie reached her suite, only one of her three roommates was actually there, a wispy girl with dark hair and dark eyes, who carried herself with the kind of confidence Maddie imagined she must have had back in the days when she and Logan roamed freely around 1600 Pennsylvania Ave without a care for the outside world.

The girl lifted her eyes to examine Maddie, but didn't move from where she sat on the floor, pouring over a textbook. "Tiffany," she said, casually raising a hand in a half-hearted wave.

"Hi," Maddie started with a smile. "I'm-"

"Madeleine Manchester," Tiffany cut her off. "I know. Your bed is that one." Tiffany gestured to the bed farthest from the door and closest to the bathroom without looking up from her textbook.

"You can call me Maddie," she said warmly, her smile becoming a bit forced.

Tiffany nodded, but didn't respond, and so Maddie busied herself with unpacking her duffel bag and putting sheets on to her mattress.

She changed into her uniform, a plaid skirt and button down that was very catholic-school-girl inspired in Maddie's opinion. She pulled on her new pink leggings under her skirt and tried not to fiddle nervously with the hem.

Maddie's dad had bought her the leggings during their trip to the Pentagon City Mall the day after landing in DC. Maddie had been desperately searching for anything to make her feel more like her old self. Besides, people would actually see her now. Including one objectively handsome President's son. The bears in Alaska had thought Maddie looked tasty no matter what outfit she was wearing, so she hadn't much bothered with her wardrobe in years. And survival gear seemed to come in surprisingly few fun colors.

After their shopping excursion, Maddie's dad sat her down in the food court and broke the news.

"Those are going to look great under your new uniform, Mad Dog," he mumbled around a mouth of soft pretzel.

Maddie tried to hide her surprise as she looked up at her father.

"I've enrolled you at the Gallagher Academy in Roseville starting three weeks from today," he continued. "I know how badly you wanted to go back to a real school when we were in Alaska, and I think this will be the perfect fit for you."

Maddie gulped down some lemonade and tried not to choke on the sickly chemical taste, or at least the way it mixed with the adrenaline that had just flooded her mouth. Her father was sending her off to boarding school in Virginia. The name clicked in Maddie's head, but she couldn't quite place where she'd heard it before.

Maddie knew she should be excited. Instead, she was apprehensive at the idea of being away from her father for the first time in six years. It wasn't like they'd been joined at the hip in Alaska. Her father had been gone the majority of the time. But he never went more than 48 hours without coming home. It was their unspoken rule, and Maddie had liked that. Maddie had needed that.

"What are you going to do?" she asked calmly. Her father had been exiled from the secret service after a particularly unpleasant near-kidnapping of the First Lady six years ago. Even if his reception in DC was warmer now, Maddie strongly doubted that he still met the field requirements after the injuries he'd sustained that day, and his more recent injuries during the incident in Alaska. Michael Manchester's right arm was still in a sling, and he was in the process of scheduling a series of surgeries to repair injuries to his back and shoulder.

"I've got a job in private security," Michael Manchester responded. "I'll be around. And I'll write to you when I'm not." Maddie had some particularly bad experiences to consider when it came to that particular promise, but she reminded herself that in sixteen years, her father had never made her a promise he couldn't keep.

Michael Manchester smiled as he looked at his daughter. "I did this for you, Mad," he assured her. "Gallagher isn't your average boarding school," he explained. "It's a school for girls like you." Maddie wasn't sure what her father meant, and her expression betrayed it. "I have one more stop to make before we go home," her father told her. "We'd better get going."

Maddie's father stood, and she followed him toward the teen section of a department store, where he confidently selected a pair of jeans Maddie wouldn't be caught dead wearing and handed them to a sales associate.

"My daughter would like to try these on," he said firmly, and though Maddie didn't know where this was headed, the expression on her father's face told her not to argue.

"Of course," the sales associate said with a wink at Maddie. She showed them to a dressing room, and Maddie's father gestured her into a changing booth. He stepped in after her and closed the door, noticeably leaving the horrible jeans with the sales associate.

Maddie wasn't entirely surprised when the booth began to shake and a retinal scan laser passed over them. The booth flashed white, and fell for what felt to Maddie like at least 30 stories.

Then the doors opened, and Maddie stared out at a black and white checkered lobby in what was certainly an underground bunker of some type. She was ushered away from her father and into a briefing room with one way glass, where she sat at a metal table across from a kind but persistent mid-thirties secret service agent by the name of Abigail Cameron, who asked her 453 questions about what had happened in Alaska. By the end of the story, Agent Cameron's expression rested somewhere between unsurprised and impressed, so Maddie concluded that she had done a perfectly adequate job protecting the President's son. Really, the results spoke for themselves.

"I hear you'll be attending Gallagher this spring," Agent Cameron said casually, as she escorted Maddie back to her father. "I'll look forward to seeing you around." She must have sensed Maddie's confusion, because she continued. "My sister is headmistress, so I guest lecture fairly frequently."

A school for girls like her. Maddie was only just beginning to grasp what her father had meant as the dressing-room-turned elevator hurtled back toward ground level.

Chapter Text

As it turned out, the Gallagher Academy was even more intimidating than Maddie had imagined.

For starters, there were fourteen mandatory languages, only two of which Maddie already spoke. And one of those was English. And there was something about knowing your new classmates could kill you with a bobby pin approximately seven different ways that was just disconcerting. Maddie was damn good with a hatchet, but she had a long way to go when it came to weaponizing her accessories.

Every girl at the Gallagher Academy was just as smart and cunning as Maddie believed herself to be, and the majority of them had several years of professional training on her. And established groups of friends. Really, Maddie had to admit that she couldn't think of many torture strategies worse than walking uninvited into a room full of high school girl cliques.

Maddie walked into the dining hall alone, and filled her tray with a meal rivaling the ones she'd had at the White House so many years before. No one saw Maddie. They were all aware of her presence, of course, but no one gestured her over to join them, not even Tiffany, who sat two tables over with a quartet of other girls, casually watching Maddie's reflection on her fork, and intentionally avoiding eye contact.

Maddie settled herself at an empty table, and waited anxiously for Logan's appearance. He was late, of course, and for a brief moment, Maddie worried about his safety. She studied her surroundings. Surely, not even Logan could escape from 144 testosterone-deprived girl spies on the very first day.

Maddie heard shuffling as several girls came to sit beside her, bantering back and forth in a series of languages and dialects. Maddie counted at least ten in the course of 30 seconds. She glanced up nervously, and the girls exchanged a glance, followed by a giggle, and switched to English.

"You're father's that infamous secret service agent who shot the Russians at their own state dinner, isn't he?"

"Is the President's son single? Are you dating? Do you have dibs? If not, I'm calling dibs."

"She really doesn't speak a single language!"

"You're really old to be just starting here, you know."

"She saved the President's son from a Russian exfiltration in Alaska, I'm pretty sure she'll catch up."

"Why were you hiding in Alaska anyway? Was it because of the whole shooting Russians in the White House incident?"

Maddie wasn't part of this conversation, not really. It was about her, not for her, and the girls didn't let her get a single word in.

It was only a deep voice, saying happily, "Make some space, ladies" that could stop them. The girls who had swarmed Maddie struggled to find space between her and Logan, and energetically began introducing themselves. Logan greeted them each with his politician's smile, but his eyes searched for Maddie's.

When he finally pushed close enough to Maddie that he could realistically expect her to hear him, he whispered urgently, "Mad. I don't think we're in Alaska anymore." Maddie rolled her eyes as dramatically as she could.

"This isn't just a girl's boarding school," he continued, and Maddie couldn't help thinking that, for a boy with a photographic memory, Logan could be very slow. "I'm pretty sure it's a boarding school for spies."

Chapter Text

Logan's parents had told him they were shipping him off to a boarding school in Virginia where he would be "properly supervised" while the President finished his term. Logan reminded them that shipping him off to Alaska hadn't worked out particularly well. They had laughed.

Logan's parents had neglected to mention several important facts when they made this announcement. For starters, they'd forgotten to mention that he and Maddie would be going to the same school again, leaving him pretty surprised when Michael Manchester ushered him into a black town car in the alley behind the White House two weeks later. They'd also forgotten to mention that he'd be the only boy, a fact that became abundantly clear the moment Logan walked through the door of the Gallagher Academy. Logan chuckled a little under his breath when what seemed like 200 teenage girls turned to look at him. Any other boy would have been in his element, savoring the attention. Logan felt monstrously uncomfortable.

By the time Logan arrived at the welcome dinner that first night after settling into his room in the faculty wing, he realized his parents had neglected to mention one other extremely important detail. It was now fairly obvious that the Gallagher Academy was a training school for future government spies.

Suddenly, the phrase "adequately supervised" took on a whole different meaning.

Logan had to hand it to the President. He had really thought this through. At an all boys boarding school, he might have been able to slip through the cracks and sneak off. Here, every eye would be trained on him, subconsciously aware of his location at all times. And Logan suspected they were very, very well-trained eyes.

Logan spotted Maddie immediately, caught in a throng of other girls, and a part of him was jealous that she'd already made so many new friends. He pushed in next to her, a subtle reminder that he had been there first.

Did Maddie know what they had gotten themselves into? Logan laughed. Of course she did. She was Maddie after all. She belonged here.

Maddie looked nervous though, Logan thought. She was hiding it, of course, but Logan had known her far too long not to recognize the hint of anxiety behind her eyes, the tensed muscles of her jaw.

"Wow," Logan joked. "My parents weren't kidding when they said there would be plenty of people to keep an eye on me."

"But I can't believe I ended up at spy school and I don't get to go to any of the actual spy classes," he lamented. "You're just going to have to tutor me off the record, Mads," he teased.

"I'll be happy to tutor you," a shorter girl with long, ash blonde hair chimed in, laughing suggestively. "In any subject you'd like."

"Well now ..." Logan stammered, trying to find the correct response to an obvious proposition. "Um thanks, but..."

"Oh trust me," the girl continued. "Maddie is going to be far far too busy studying to spend time with you. I'm not sure if you've figured this out yet," she whispered conspiratorially, inches from Logan's ear. "But our curriculum is pretty demanding."

"I'm Alice," she said with a smile at Logan. "One of Maddie's roommates."

"Don't worry, Maddie," she said, in a tone that strongly implied Maddie should be very worried. "I'm sure you'll measure up to our demanding standards. You are a legacy after all. Though why you've only just arrived is a really good question. Maybe your dad didn't think you were cut out for this life," she shrugged. "But what do I know?"

Maddie forced a laugh and a shrug, but her eyes shot daggers as she said "I don't think the Gallagher Academy has a correspondence course to Alaska, unfortunately."

Alice stood to leave, then grabbed Logan's hand, and scrawled a number on it. Logan wasn't even sure where she'd gotten the pen. She definitely hadn't had it ten seconds earlier. "So you'll remember where I live," she said knowingly. And then she flounced off to sit with a curvy Latina girl who looked like a model, and was forcing back a smile.

The girl on Maddie's other side rolled her eyes. "That's Alice for you," she scoffed. "I guess you got stuck rooming with the Bees," she continued. "Rotten luck on your part."

"The Bees?" Maddie asked.

"Like 'Queen Bees?'" the girl clarified. Maddie nodded. "I'm Casey, by the way. And I promise I'm nothing like the three of them."

Casey was average in height, a brunette with finer bone structure than Maddie's and shinier hair in a similar color. Her dark eyes, fresh tan, and soft accent suggested to Logan that she'd just returned visiting family in southern Italy over the holidays.

"Don't mind any of them," Casey continued. "This place is always a rumor mill the first day back. And Alice's mother is on the board, so somehow she always knows everything about everyone. You won't be this interesting for long."

"You, on the other hand," Casey gestured to Logan. "I can't make any promises. We don't get a lot of cute guys around here, as you might guess. You know, unless we decide to kidnap them."

Logan forced a laugh, but he felt Maddie tense beside him. Casey saw it too.

"Okay, okay," she said, chagrined. "Too soon, I get it."

Logan lifted his fork and dug into a perfectly roasted pork chop.

"If we're going to be friends though, we have to play a little game first," Casey said. "I call it 'Truth or Rumor'. And you're allowed to pass on any topic with a security clearance level higher than 4. Because, like, we're already here," she gestured around. "So anything under that is fair game."

"Do we get to ask you questions too?" Maddie asked, and when she spoke, she sounded like the girl Logan knew. The girl who belonged here.

Casey looked a bit surprised. "Sure," she shrugged. "Though I can't imagine you've heard much about me in the last three hours."

Maddie shrugged back, her face giving away nothing, and raised her palms in a "go ahead" gesture.

"Truth or Rumor," Casey started. "The two of you've been friends since you were ten."

"Eight," Maddie corrected. "But truth."

"Truth or Rumor: you saved his life in Alaska"

"Truth," Logan said proudly, smiling at the girl beside him.

"It was a joint effort," Maddie corrected. "Truth or rumor," she continued. "You used to be one of the Bees."

Casey looked surprised, but met Maddie's eyes and said firmly, "Truth."

She studied Maddie for a moment. "How'd you know that?"

Maddie shrugged. "Just an instinct."

"Truth or Rumor: your mom was a Gallagher Girl."

Maddie shrugged again. "Could be either," she said calmly. "She's been dead a long time."

"Huh," Casey paused. "You're dad doesn't talk about her?"

Maddie shook her head. "Never."

Casey nodded in understanding. "My dad died when I was a baby too," she said. "And my mom, it turns out, was a double agent. My Aunt basically raised me. But suffice it to say that neither of them are a popular topic of conversation with her."

"Truth or Rumor," Logan interrupted. "You're from southern Italy."

"Mostly truth," Casey admitted. "My grandparents were born there, and moved back when they retired. But my Dad and my Aunt were both born in United States. You guys aren't bad for a few new recruits." She laughed and looked at Logan. "I'm guessing the photographic memory isn't a rumor."

"No, ma'am," Logan couldn't help but smile back.

"Ok, last thing," Casey said, looking at Logan. "Are you guys dating?"

Logan found himself waiting anxiously for the answer as well, and Maddie's soft but instantaneous "No" sent his heart plummeting what felt like 20 stories.

It was probably for the best, he reminded himself. Dating your best friend could get very complicated very quickly. Especially with a girl like Maddie, who, Logan had recently learned, could hold a grudge like nobody's business.

I mean, sure, he had kissed her a few times, including a few hours ago as they stood at the gates of this very school, and yeah, it had all been amazing, from Logan's perspective. But maybe for Maddie it had just been the result of the adrenaline of having just survived a near-death experience. Statistically, it was highly likely that dating Maddie would implode an otherwise fabulous friendship. And if Maddie just didn't see him that way, Logan knew there was nothing he could do to change that.

"I think you'll do," Maddie said, smiling. "We're accepting you as our friend."

Casey smiled back. "Welcome to Gallagher, friends. I think you're going to like it here."

Chapter Text

Headmistress Morgan might have been able to stop Logan from going to spy classes, but she wouldn't stop him from learning everything he could about being a covert professional. That was what he told himself as he rushed through his online classes on his Gallagher-issued laptop in the back corner of the library. He was in a spy school, after all. And if he'd learned anything in Alaska, it was that he should really be more prepared for the unexpected.

Logan's online curriculum had, to some extent, been intensified, whether to match his new environment or his parents' ivy league college aspirations, he couldn't be sure. He laughed internally, thinking that his current situation would have made one hell of a college admissions essay if it weren't so classified. But who was he kidding? He knew that, in reality, no ivy league Dean would look further than his name before offering him admission.

This fact annoyed Logan, who was only just beginning to realize that no matter what he did with the rest of his life, he would always stand in his father's shadow.

But in the meantime, Logan was facing a heavy course load of advanced calculus, practical mathematics, Arabic, Mandarin, college prep writing, and lab chemistry.

Despite his photographic memory, or perhaps because of it, Logan had never been a focused student. But as he breezed through his coursework that Monday morning, he realized that he had simply never had the proper motivation.

Here, however, Logan had a plan. Logan had been assigned to a study space that was also a treasure trove of information on the clandestine arts. Probably tens of thousands of books lined the walls. And no one had ever explicitly told Logan he couldn't read them. And he could certainly get through a few books before someone noticed this oversight.

If Logan was going to do this, he figured he had better start at the beginning, and so he turned to a 2,000 page book that purported to recount the history of the school and its founder, Gillian Gallagher. After all, if he was going to try and survive in a school of intimidating spy-girls, he decided he should know something about them.

Logan became so quickly engrossed into the tale of Gillian Gallagher, the founding of her school, the revival of her archenemies, the Circle of Cavan, and the great fire at Gallagher, that he barely even noticed when an exhausted-looking Maddie set her schoolbag on the empty chair across from him.

"Hey," he smiled happily. "How was your first day?"

Maddie rolled her eyes, as if it had been too terrible for words. "Well, Alice was right about one thing," she said. "I am very, very behind."

She pulled a very detailed list which including bullet points and sub-bullet points from her bag, and continued to rifle through it for the appropriate materials. Logan reached across the table and flipped the top page on the notepad. The paper felt funny between his fingers, almost like wax candy. Then he flipped another page. Maddie's homework to-do list was three full pages long.

"Is this...for tomorrow?!" Logan asked, floored.

Maddie fixed him with a glare. "Yes, Logan," she snapped. "As you can probably guess, I don't have a lot of time to talk about it."

Logan silently returned to his book, but continued to watch Maddie out of the corner of his eye.

"This is crazy," she mumbled, after about two hours. "My dad is crazy. There is no way I'm going to catch up."

Logan knew she was wrong. But he also knew better than to disagree. No one should get on the bad side of a woman who is really, really good with a hatchet.

At hour three, Logan left the library, gathered a tray of food from the dining hall, carefully assembled the food into a sandwich, wrapped it in a far-too-nice-for-a-dining-hall napkin, and snuck it into his jacket pocket. He strolled casually back to the library, past the librarian and a conspicuous "no food" sign, and settled back at the table. Then he removed the sandwich and passed it to Maddie.

When she looked at him, Logan could see her fighting back a smile. "You can't even make it through one whole day without breaking a rule, can you?" She asked incredulously.

"See?" He laughed. "Maybe I've got more spy in me than everyone thinks."

Maddie rolled her eyes and took a bite of her sandwich.

"Mad," Logan said softly, and he waited until she looked at him to continue. "It's the first day. Remember my first day in Alaska? There's no way today was as hard as that."

Maddie didn't respond, and Logan knew that meant she agreed with him.

"Don't you ever underestimate what you're capable of, Madeleine Manchester," he said firmly.

Logan stretched his hand palm up across the table toward her, and was surprised when she placed her slender fingers in his.

"Hey," he said softly. "You've got this."

Logan felt Maddie's head lean toward him more than he saw it, felt his own head lean toward her, until their foreheads were almost touching. He could feel her breath on his face, smell the strawberry scent of her shampoo. And he knew that if he opened his eyes, if he let his gaze rest on Maddie's perfect lips, he would have to kiss her.

So he kept them closed. Maddie said they weren't dating, and he respected her decision. If Maddie wanted to be more than friends, she would have to be the one to ask for it. He would never ever push her.

"I thought you might be here!"

Casey's voice startled them, and they jolted back to their original positions, much farther apart from each other than Logan would have liked.

"How are you holding up?" She asked Maddie, knowingly.

"I've been better," Maddie responded.

"I'll bet," Casey joked. "It's a little intense around here. What can I help you with?"

Maddie flipped through her three page list, and Logan was impressed at the amount she'd managed to cross off.

"Swahili," she decided. "That's what I'm struggling most with right now."

Casey nodded. "Are all your classes with the 8th graders?" She asked.

Maddie nodded. "Except Covert Operations, which starts tomorrow. And PE - sorry, P and E - also tomorrow."

Casey laughed. "That makes sense," she agreed. "We're only a semester into cove-ops, and it's pretty clear from your background that you know how to handle yourself."

Maddie shrugged. "I am pretty good with a hatchet," she admitted.

"And you fought off a Russian psychopath," Logan added. "Let's not forget that."

"Oh, don't worry, Logan," Maddie smiled, looking more like the Maddie Logan knew. "I'm never going to let you forget about that."

Chapter Text

The joke was on her, really, because Maddie knew that she would never, ever forget what had happened in Alaska.

When Maddie finally crept back to her room at 1:30 a.m., her roommates were fast asleep. That was probably for the best, Maddie thought. Alice, Tiffany, and Olivia certainly weren't the friendliest people, and they seemed a bit resentful that she had been foisted upon them. Maddie suspected that, as Alice had predicted, she was going to be far too busy to really get to know any of them.

Before today, Maddie had never sat in a room full of thirteen year-olds and been undeniably sure they were all smarter than her. She felt like she was running down a hill, too fast, just waiting for that moment when she would inevitably lose her footing and gravity would take over.

Maddie silently got into bed, but couldn't fall asleep. She waited for her eyes to adjust to the darkness. If there was one thing you got used to in Alaska, it was darkness, and Maddie still had near-perfect night vision as a result of the six years she'd spent there.

She counted the cracks on her ceiling (which didn't take long, since the Gallagher Academy had been rebuilt only five years earlier), conjugated the 30 Swahili verbs she now knew, and counted backward from 10,000 by multiples of three. When none of that worked, she took out her new pad of evapopaper and began to write.

Dear Dad,

You said I belonged here. And I really want to know what you meant. Did you mean I belonged because I can throw a hatchet 50 yards with dead-accurate aim? Did you mean that I saved the President's son from a near-kidnapping, so I'm basically a secret service agent now? Or did you mean that I belong here because Mom went here?

I wish you'd told me more about Mom, instead of just shipping me off to a school where my roommate whose mother is on the board apparently knows more about me than I do.

I guess you never even told me why you never talk about Mom. I just always assumed it was because it hurt you to think about her. Well the game is up, because today I learned to stop assuming.

And you really owe me an explanation.

Love, Maddie

Maddie didn't intend to send the letter, but writing it comforted her nonetheless, and she was finally able to settle into a restless sleep.

"Maddie?" Logan's confused voice woke her from her fitful dreams, as she tried to figure out what Logan was doing in her room, and how he could have possibly snuck in without waking her roommates.

Then she felt the cold hard tile floor beneath her palms, and startled awake.

Maddie was on the floor, on her comforter, and she had no idea how she had gotten there. And that was terrifying. For as long as Maddie could remember, Maddie had remembered everything. She couldn't be sure if it was a product of her lineage, or simply the result of growing up with Michael Manchester, but it was a fact nonetheless. And yet, somehow, she had traveled from her suite to what looked like the faculty hallway, and she couldn't remember any of it.

"This is your room, isn't it?" Maddie asked, already knowing the answer. Logan nodded, and concern started to spread over his face.

"How did I know that?" Maddie wondered out loud. She must have pieced it together from walking around earlier that day, she reasoned. She'd known Logan was staying in the faculty wing. At some point earlier that day, she must have learned where the faculty wing was located, and her brain had subconsciously charted a map to Logan.

"Mad. . ." he started slowly, coming to kneel beside her. "What are you doing here?"

Maddie drew her knees to her chest, and refused to meet his eyes. "Protecting you?" she offered, because it seemed like the most reasonable explanation. Why else would her brain direct her toward Logan in the middle of the night? "Maybe?"

"Maddie," Logan asked gently. "You don't know how you got here, do you?"

Maddie shook her head. Logan stared at her in bewilderment.

"Mad, it's 5 a.m.," he continued. "Go back to your room. Try to stay there. You need your rest. We'll talk about this later."

Maddie slowly lifted herself off the floor and rolled her comforter into the smallest possible ball (which still wasn't very small). Maddie's bones ached with a tiredness she hadn't felt in a long time, and she had to agree that Logan was right about one thing - she did need her rest.

Maddie didn't begin to wonder where Logan had been going at 5 a.m. until she bolted upright in her bed at the sound of her alarm two hours later. And the minute the thought crossed through her mind, she began to panic. She grabbed for her uniform, and started to pull it on, before she noticed Tiffany casually watching her from across the room.

"If you're looking for your boyfriend, don't bother," she said quietly, clearly trying not to wake Olivia, who was still asleep nearby. "He's at the dining hall eating a big breakfast. Probably needs it after his run this morning."

Maddie froze, her skirt on, but still over her pajama bottoms, and stared at Tiffany.

"It's on the intranet," Tiffany explained with a shrug. "Some of the Freshmen started a "where's Logan" thread, and now they just stalk him around campus in real time. There's been talk of developing an app, but I'd give it until at least the end of the week."

Maddie breathed a sigh of both relief and horror that the Gallagher Academy's entire student body was tracking Logan's every move. She couldn't be sure if this was exactly what the Headmistress and Logan's parents had wanted, or a massive violation of his privacy.

"Speaking of boyfriends," Tiffany asked innocently. "Where were you last night?"

"Studying," Maddie responded. "I have a lot to study."

"Sure," Tiffany smiled. "I'm convinced you were studying until 5 a.m. I'm sure you definitely weren't curled up in Logan's bed."

"I wasn't," Maddie said, truthfully. "And he's not my boyfriend."

Tiffany shrugged, a clear statement that she didn't believe a word of what Maddie had said, and turned back to her laptop. Maddie finished pulling on her uniform, and gathered her school bag, before the conversation could get any stranger. "I'll see you in CoveOps," she said, as she slipped out of the suite. Tiffany raised one eyebrow in response, but didn't say another word.

Chapter Text

By the time Maddie stepped into the elevator to Sublevel one, she was seriously regretting her decision not to wash her hair that morning. In that moment, it was difficult to imagine something more horrifying than finally sitting in a class of her peers with unwashed hair.

The Gallagher Academy had been reconstructed, at great expense, to match the original structure as closely as possible after the great fire, though Maddie suspected that additional security features, including, hopefully, a fire suppression system, had been added. While the majority of the mansion was a stately NeoGothic style, the sublevels were a modern blend of glass, tile and marble.

Maddie settled onto a stool in the second to last row of their glass-walled classroom and casually watched her classmates. Tiffany, Alice and Olivia sat grouped together at the front of the room, chatting quietly. Other girls grouped off in 2's or 3's. Including her, Maddie had determined, there were 24 sophomores. It was almost like the Gallagher Academy had been waiting for her to make a nice, even number. What were the chances of that, Maddie wondered. She was sure one of the girls in this room could have calculated the odds.

"This seat taken?" Casey asked brightly as she slid onto the stool beside Maddie, not waiting for a response. "Welcome to cove ops!"

"That's generally my job, Cassandra," a handsome man in his late forties said calmly as he stepped out from behind a partition.

"Hello, Ladies," the man said, but to Maddie, it sounded more like a warning than a welcome. "You've made it to your second semester of my class, apparently."

The man carried himself with the confidence of someone who'd spent his whole life in the field and lived to tell about it, and he had the injuries to match. A long burn scar ran down the side of Joe Solomon's face, and continued over his left hand. Maddie wondered if the scars were from the great fire, or if he'd acquired them long before. He also tried to hide a limp on his left leg, but Maddie could see the tentative manner in which he carried it.

"Let's see if we can keep you alive until the end of the year," he continued. "I don't want to be too optimistic."

In a normal school, a comment like that from a teacher might have solicited a laugh from the students, but no one in Joe Solomon's classroom laughed. Maybe it was because her classmates were all future spies, and living was never a guarantee. Maybe it was Joe Solomon's commanding presence. Or maybe it was just the fact that the chef had prepared a very heavy lunch that day, and all Maddie's classmates were drifting into a food coma like bears in the winter.

Maddie herself was intimidated. Really, anyone in their right mind should be. Maddie was still learning her Gallagher Academy history, but there was a rumor that Joe Solomon had once outrun the entirety of MI6, jumped off a London drawbridge and escaped using a team of highly trained carrier pigeons and a very large catfish. And of course, he had been a triple agent with the Circle of Cavan, ultimately helping the CIA to drive one of the most notorious terrorist groups to extinction, or at least deep, deep underground.

"You ladies will all know by now that Ms. Madeleine Manchester has joined our class," Joe Solomon continued, while writing a list of common exfiltration tactics on the white board at the front of the room. "She's a bit behind in her lessons, but I trust that all of you will help her to get up to speed."

"I heard she saved the President's Son from a Russian superspy in Alaska using only vaseline and a necklace." A girl whispered somewhere to Maddie's left. Maddie bit back a laugh. It was flattering, for sure, but she'd also had a flare gun, a real gun, some rope, and a home court advantage when it came to the Alaskan landscape.

Oh, and of course, ultimately, her father.

Maybe that was why Maddie's first few days at the Gallagher Academy had made her feel like she was having an out-of-body experience. No matter what had happened in Alaska, Maddie had always known her father would come back sometime in the next forty-eight hours. Of course, you could easily die in less than 48 hours in Alaska, but Maddie had generally tried not to think about that.

At least she had Logan, Maddie thought. But that was a whole complication all in itself. Maddie had kissed Logan in Alaska. Several times, actually. And then on the steps of the Gallagher Academy two days earlier. And ok, so maybe some of the kisses had been strategic decisions. And maybe the others had been fueled by the adrenaline of a near-death experience, or the fear of walking into a school of 143 hundred spies-in-training, but that didn't mean Maddie hadn't enjoyed them. That didn't mean Maddie didn't want to kiss Logan again.

Two days ago, she'd told Casey that they weren't dating, and she wondered now if it was possible to walk back her statement. It was the thought of being Logan's "girlfriend," really, that had triggered Maddie, and she wondered if she was destined to see Stefan's sneer in her head every time she thought it for the rest of her life. But maybe it was better to focus on her studies anyway.

If Maddie was truly being honest with herself, the only subject she was actually good at was Protection and Enforcement, and she breathed a huge sigh of relief as she left her mildly claustrophobic CoveOps class and stepped into the giant, cavernous P&E Barn. Over the next hour and a half, Maddie ran drills, climbed a sheer wall, and wrestled another sophomore to the ground. She found comfort in using her body, trusting her instincts. Alaska had taught Maddie to be confident in her own strength, and confidence was something Maddie desperately needed to regain in her present environment.

Chapter Text

It wasn't until after dinner that Maddie remembered that morning's incident. She still wasn't sure how she had come to be sleeping outside of Logan's room. She'd never sleep-walked before in her entire life, at least not that she could remember. But Maddie didn't really know whether she could trust her memory or not anymore.

Maddie turned the corner and found herself at the end of the hallway where she lived. After the day she'd had, she should have been tired, or at least eager to get into bed. But as she reached for the doorknob, she was gripped with a powerful instinct to flee. Icy fingers of fear ran down Maddie's back, and she froze, only for a moment, before turning on her heel and speed-walking out of the mansion. When the fresh air of the outdoor world hit her face, Maddie broke into a run.

She didn't stop when she threw open the doors to the P&E barn, and her legs swiftly carried her across the massive barn to the indoor firing range on the far end. In one smooth motion, without breaking stride, Maddie slid her second favorite hatchet from her boot and hurled it across the range, the blade sinking deep into the center of the target. Only then did she allow her feet to slow, gradually pulling up to a halt. Only then did she collapse onto the floor, and allow the tears to fall from her eyes.

She only cried for a minute. Well, 93 seconds, if she was really counting. Maddie hadn't allowed herself to be weak in a long time. Alaska wasn't exactly the kind of place a girl could be weak. Not unless that girl subsequently wanted to be very, very dead.

Then Maddie pulled herself to her feet, climbed over the guardrail, and retrieved her hatchet. She drew a slow, wavering breath, and tried to calm herself, despite the adrenaline she could already feel coursing through her veins.

When she heard the footsteps, Maddie spun, and recoiled her hatchet arm as if to throw. Logan recognized the move and ducked, clearly waiting for Maddie's hatchet to narrowly slice past his ear. That was rather silly, Maddie thought, because if she'd actually thrown the hatchet at Logan, she still would have hit him. Logan's half-duck wouldn't exactly have impacted her aim.

When the swoosh didn't come, Logan slowly straightened, his eyes locked on Maddie's throwing arm. "Shit, Mad," he muttered quietly as he rose.

Maddie rolled her eyes, but allowed her throwing arm to fall to her side, her hatchet still resting lightly between her fingers. She cocked an eyebrow at Logan.

"What are you doing here?" She asked.

"Are you okay, Maddie?" Logan responded. Maddie rolled her eyes again, as if brushing him off. But Maddie knew the answer to that question, she just wasn't ready to admit it to herself.

"Tell me why you're here," she repeated, leveling her most intimidating glare at Logan.

"I was worried about you," Logan admitted. "I saw you rushing out of the mansion, and I was worried about you."

"I can take care of myself," Maddie responded, and she turned away, so Logan wouldn't see the uncertainty in her eyes.

"Oh, I know you can, Mad Dog" Logan said softly. "But you don't have to."

The tears threatened to seep out of Maddie's eyes again, but she refused to let them. The Gallagher Academy might have 100% more hot water and waffle bars than Maddie's cabin in Alaska, but she already knew that it was no place for weakness either.

Maddie gathered her composure, then turned to face Logan. She took a breath and crossed the distance between them, her free hand taking his.

"I'm fine," she said firmly, fixing Logan with a stare.

"Of course you are," Logan said, his tone clearly skeptical. Logan reached for her other hand, but noticed that Maddie was still holding her hatchet, and awkwardly dropped his arm to his side. "That's exactly why you're out here throwing hatchets instead of inside, asleep."

"I'm behind," Maddie started.

"At hatchet throwing?" Logan cut her off with a tone that left no room to argue, so Maddie didn't. Instead, she just let the silence hover between them.

Logan sighed heavily, and sank to the thick mat below them. Maddie followed him. She didn't really have a choice, seeing as he was still holding one of her hands, she told herself. And once she was sitting on the mat beside Logan, it was just natural to lean her tired body into his, to rest her head against his broad shoulder.

They sat in silence for a while, and Maddie could feel the tension coursing through Logan's body beside her, like he was trying very hard not to move. He stroked his thumb over her fingers, but was otherwise motionless. But he didn't move away from her either, and so Maddie stayed put.

"I've never sleepwalked before," Maddie whispered, but in the silence of the P&E barn, her words seemed to echo. There, it was out now, the fear that had been hovering in the back of Maddie's mind since she'd first woken up this morning. That what happened in Alaska had broken her in some horrible, undeniable permanent way that she was only just starting to realize.

"I have," Logan said softly. He hesitated a moment before he continued. "It's a sign of trauma, Mad."

Maddie felt his eyes on her, but she didn't meet his gaze.

"You've been really jumpy since we got here," he commented, and Maddie probably would have punched him in the face if she hadn't known it was true. "That's not like you."

Maddie started to argue. Logan hadn't seen her in six years, except for their near-death experience in Alaska. How dare he have opinions about what she was or wasn't like. Logan barely even knew her anymore.

Except that he did, no matter how much Maddie hated to admit it. Logan was the only friend she'd ever really had. Logan was the only person she'd written to from Alaska. Logan was the only person who'd also been kidnapped by a Russian psychopath in a snowstorm. And Maddie certainly wasn't feeling much like herself these days anyway.

"They were speaking Russian," Maddie admitted. "When I got back to my room, I could hear my roommates from the hallway, and they were speaking Russian."

Maddie felt Logan studying her, like he wasn't sure quite how to proceed next. Then he slowly slid one arm around Maddie's shoulder, his hand resting just over the scar from her bullet wound, and lightly leaned his head against hers. It could have been just a friendly gesture, an offer of comfort, except that Maddie felt a heat burn down her entire body from the place where his hand rested.

"We went through some pretty intense stuff in Alaska, Mad," Logan said, reassuringly. "It's going to take some time for your subconscious to heal."

"How long did it take you?" Maddie asked, and she tried not to focus on the way her skin tingled where Logan touched her. "The last time?"

Logan laughed, but the sound was hollow. "I'm a work in progress," he admitted. "I've spent most of the six years since my mother's kidnapping escaping from highly trained government operatives assigned to protect me, just to prove to myself that I could."

He laughed again, but it wasn't funny. No, Logan's voice was the temperature of ice as he said, "And then when it really mattered, I was helpless."

"That's not true," Maddie shook her head. "We got out of there together. We were a team."

"I put you in danger," Logan said firmly. "You almost died, Maddie. I. . . I thought you were dead. . ." Logan trailed off as his voice broke, and his fingers gripped Maddie's shoulder tightly. "And I'll never forgive myself for that."

"Well, I'm not," Maddie said pointedly, trying to ease the tension. "I lived in Alaska for six years, mostly alone. It would take a lot more than one Russian psychopath to do me in."

Logan smiled a little, mostly, Maddie thought, because he believed her. And if she tried hard enough, Maddie could almost believe herself.

Chapter Text

Maddie's head was on Logan's shoulder, and his arm was falling asleep. And yet, it was the single best thing that had happened to Logan all day.

Logan held intentionally still, so as not to disturb her, until his back ached, and a stabbing pain started to shoot down his arm, but it was all worth it. Maddie's body leaned against his, and it felt like the most natural, perfect, thing in the world.

It took every ounce of Logan's self-control not to pull Maddie as close to him as possible, and never, ever let her go. But he wouldn't do that to Maddie. He couldn't. She'd said they weren't dating, and he had promised himself that he wouldn't push her. If Maddie only ever wanted to be friends, Logan would find a way to be fine with that. Just as long as he never, ever had to lose her again.

Besides, Maddie was going through a lot right now. And Logan knew what that was like probably better than anyone else. Logan knew what it was like to walk into a room and panic, and only understand why hours later. He knew what it was like to long for sleep, but fear it at the same time. He knew what it was like to revisit a moment over and over again and wish to God you'd noticed something sooner. And he was going to do everything in his power to make sure Maddie wasn't alone with her fear the way he had been.

They sat in silence for a while longer, and Logan couldn't help but think how strange it was to be silent with Maddie. The Maddie Logan knew was always, always talking.

"I like it out here," Maddie said, finally. "It's just kind of comforting and homey isn't it?"

In all honesty, it seemed like any other giant barn filled to the brim with professional grade martial arts equipment, an entire armory full of weapons, and a programmable climbing wall that was set to randomize the hold locations every single day. But Logan didn't say any of that. Instead he nodded and agreed with Maddie.

"It was pretty much the only building to survive the fire," Logan told her. "Maybe the ghost of Gillian is still hanging around."

Logan could basically feel Maddie rolling her eyes as she said, "I didn't know the history of the Gallagher Academy was on your curriculum."

"Yeah, yeah" Logan protested, rolling his eyes. "If I'm going to do trigonometry by myself in the library for another 4 months, I'm at least going to make the best of it. There are a million books in there, and no one told me I couldn't read them. I want to be prepared, if something like that ever happens again."

Logan felt Maddie tense beside him, and instantly regretted his words. He stroked her shoulder gently, and forced back the urge to kiss her forehead. Until this moment, Logan simply hadn't realized how much what happened in Alaska had been affecting Maddie. How much of it she was still processing. And it made sense. Maddie had almost died. Maddie's father had almost died. And Maddie had killed a man. A really really really bad man, but a man nonetheless.

Logan decided to change the subject. "I thought you weren't allowed to bring your hatchet to school."

Maddie laughed. "I mean, do I look like the kind of girl who's going to leave her hatchet at home just because someone told her to?"

Logan had to agree that she did not. Maddie looked like the kind of girl who probably had about three more weapons secretly stashed somewhere on her person.

"Can you teach me to throw?" he asked. He didn't really expect Maddie to shrug her shoulders, jump to her feet, and press the handle of her second-favorite hatchet into his hand, but that was exactly what she did. She positioned his body in front of the target, adjusted his stance, and his grip on the hatchet, and it took everything Logan had to hold it together. Logan's skin burned everywhere Maddie touched him. He was incredibly conscious of the proximity of her body to his, her hair brushing his arm, the smell of her shampoo as she stood on tiptoes to adjust his shoulders.

"It's all in follow-through," she said, demonstrating a textbook throw beside him. "Now you go."

Logan had asked for this, so he didn't have any choice but to square his shoulders with the target and try to imitate Maddie's motions as closely as possible. He let the hatchet fly from his grip and watched with fascination as it turned over and over in the air and landed with a satisfying thunk in the wall, about two feet from the target he was aiming at.

Maddie looked impressed. "Not bad for your first effort," she admitted. "It definitely takes some practice."

Logan ducked under the guardrail and dislodged the hatchet, returning it to Maddie's hand. A stubbornness Logan recognized well flashed in Maddie's eyes, and she immediately drew her arm back, took half a step forward, and hurled the hatchet straight into the center of the target Logan had missed. A satisfied look crossed her face, and Logan suspected this was one of the few areas of her life where Maddie still had the utmost confidence in her abilities.

"Yeah, yeah," he teased, collecting the hatchet again. "We all know you still have the ultimate bragging rights." Maddie smiled a little then, an actual smile, and Logan's heart almost leapt at the sight.

"It's 1 a.m., Mad," Logan said gently. "Where are you going to sleep tonight?"

Maddie's face fell at the words, and her expression of nervous apprehension nearly killed him. She considered for a moment. "Here, I suppose?" she said the words as a question, not a statement, and Logan felt his heart breaking. The Maddie he knew had never questioned a decision in her entire life.

"Ok," he nodded, and settled himself onto one of the thick mats. "Mhm," he nodded, "Pretty comfy."

Maddie settled next to him. "There's no way my subconscious can make its way all the way from here to your room," she agreed. "So this should be fine."

"Well there won't be any need," Logan clarified. "I'm staying with you."

"No," Maddie shook her head violently. "You're going back to the mansion where it's safe. We're alone out here. You don't have a detail - you're supposed to be surrounded by all the teachers, so you're safe.

Logan shrugged. "I think I'm in more than capable hands with you," he said. "Besides, it's safer for me to be here than traipsing around the grounds alone at night."

"Fine," Maddie huffed. "Just tonight though. Tomorrow you're staying in your room."

Logan nodded. "Of course I am. And you're staying in yours too."

"Ok," Maddie said.

"Ok," Logan responded. "Goodnight, Mad Dog."

The mats were actually softer than Logan had anticipated, and Maddie fell asleep almost immediately, which made him happy. As he counted her deep, measured breaths, he felt the tension in his own body ease. Maddie was okay. They were okay. It was all going to be okay. Logan took off his sweatshirt and draped it gently over Maddie's small body, then settled onto his back on the mat beside her and stared up at the ceiling. He closed his eyes, and immediately opened them again, as an image of Maddie's body, crumpled at the bottom of a ravine flashed in his mind. What he wouldn't give to be able to forget the image that had been haunting him for weeks. He glanced over at Maddie laying quietly beside him. She was only sleeping, Logan reminded himself. And yet a part of Logan couldn't help but wonder if the Maddie he had known was dead.

Chapter Text

Dear Mad Dog,

As I write this, it's been forty-eight hours. I'm sure I'll lose all of my "cool dad" points by saying this, but what the hell. I miss you, kiddo. I miss you a whole lot. By the time you get this, you'll have finished your first week of school, and I'm sure you'll have forgotten all about me. The truth is, I always knew you belonged at Gallagher, but we were already living in Alaska by the time you were old enough to attend. I hope you're loving it.

Love,

Dad

Maddie had waited until she was finished with her homework to open the letter from her father, and she didn't regret that decision. 

"From your dad?" Logan asked, studying her. 

Maddie nodded. "My Dad knows how to keep a promise when he makes one," she said pointedly. 

Logan returned to his textbook, looking chagrined. Casey bit back a soft giggle from her chair on the other side of the fireplace. At Casey's urging, they had moved their regular study space from the drafty library to the hearth in the common room, and Maddie wholly supported that decision. The sophomore common room was surprisingly unpopular, and they were rarely interrupted, except by the occasional girl looking for an opportunity to casually eyeball Logan.

Maddie fingered the edges of her father's letter, and considered whether writing back would make things better, or worse. How could she describe her first week at Gallagher without worrying him? If Michael Manchester so much as suspected that she was struggling, he would move heaven and earth to get to her, even if, at the end of the day, there was nothing to be gained by it. And if she wrote to him with anything less than the absolute truth, he would see straight through it, Maddie had no doubt. The only safe choice was to stay silent. The irony of it was almost too much.

But Maddie couldn't tell her father about the sleepwalking. She couldn't tell him that she'd slept in the P&E barn every night this week. She couldn't tell him that she was struggling with Farsi and just about every other subject area. That she strongly suspected she would never catch up to the other girls her age. She couldn't tell him that she had smuggled in her second-favorite hatchet, her second-favorite throwing knife, and her magnesium necklace in violation of the rules. Well ok, maybe she could have told him that.

Maddie glanced over at Logan, who was intently studying Casey's notes from Countries of the World. "You know, I could totally handle this," Logan said brightly. "I can't believe Headmistress Morgan won't let me go to any of the spy classes. I mean, I'm here, in a  spy school . I spend all of my time with a bunch of women studying to become spies. I hear their conversations. I read their notes. How much more of a security risk would I be if I actually attended the classes?"

Maddie rolled her eyes, but Casey took Logan's side. "I mean, did she actually tell you you weren't allowed to go to spy classes?" Casey asked. "Or did she just decline to enroll you in them, and you interpreted that as a prohibition?"

Logan was silent for a moment. "You're right," he said, after considering it. "Technically she never said I  couldn't  go to spy classes. Just that I had to continue my online classes."

Casey shrugged. "Then come to Countries of the World with me tomorrow," she offered.

"Sweet!" Maddie rolled her eyes again, but no one noticed. The last thing Logan needed was a better knowledge base to pull from the next time he decided to do something incredibly stupid, like ditch his secret service detail or confront a Russian Crime Boss.

Maddie shook her head involuntarily, as if rattling her brain a little could scrub out the image of Logan on his knees, defenseless, before the most powerful criminal in Russia. Truth be told, Maddie was still a little mad about it. Logan had been an idiot, and he'd been incredibly lucky that she'd had six years of boredom and a lot of pent up hostility to work on her throwing skills.

"I think this is a bad idea," Maddie said firmly. "Headmistress Morgan is a very very intelligent woman, and if she wanted you to go to class with us, she would have arranged for you to do that."

Logan rolled his eyes. "Then it's probably good I'm not in the habit of doing what other people want."

Maddie shrugged. "Have it your way," she said coldly. "Just don't forget you're not the only person who ends up in harm's way as a result of your decisions." It was a low blow, and Maddie knew it, but she had a point to make, and she wasn't done yet. "You've already managed to get one secret service agent fired, and injured another three, all of whom could have died. Including my dad. Next time I might not be there to kill a man on your behalf."

Logan's face turned white at Maddie's words, which satisfied her a little. 

"Ok," Casey said skeptically. "I think that's a little bit of an exaggeration of the consequences of going to class with us..."

But Maddie's hands were shaking and she couldn't stop it. And she didn't want anyone to see. So she stuffed her books into her bag, and took off down the hallway.

She could hear Logan's steps behind her, his voice calling her name, so she walked faster. She couldn't face Logan, not now.

Maddie speed-walked down the hallway, without paying any attention to where she was going. All she knew was that she couldn't be in the same room as Logan and Casey for one moment longer. Lost in thought, she descended two levels of the back staircase without thinking about it. She found herself in front of Gillian Gallagher's family tree tapestry, which had been painstakingly reproduced after the great fire, completely disoriented. She could hear Logan a flight up, following her, but she didn't want to be caught. Maddie silently cursed herself for her failure to develop a comprehensive mental map of the mansion. And then she saw it. A small portion of the alcove where no dust had collected. A portion where dust should have collected.

Maddie pushed against the wall with her shoulder. It didn't budge, but her instinct told her not to give up. Her fingers searched the wooden frame. A latch clicked, and the panel fell away from her, revealing a small, black hole. Maddie breathed a sigh of relief, slipped into the dark space, and pulled the panel closed behind her.

There was only darkness. As the silence settled around Maddie,  she felt a giant weight lift from her shoulders. At last, for the first time in weeks, she was alone. She let the quiet wash over her, like water. Solitude. Silence. She hadn't realized how much she'd needed either until this moment.

Maddie took a deep breath of the musty air and pushed her way through the cobwebs and deeper into the tunnel. Silky strands of spider floss clung to her hair, but she paid them no mind. Maddie had never really been the kind of girl who was concerned about getting dirty, after all.

The further she crawled, the more at ease she felt. This was where she belonged, in the silence, alone. The passage grew taller, and Maddie stood. She wasn't really quite sure where she was, but the tunnel was dirt now, and less even. Maddie glanced over her shoulder for a half second, considering her options. And then she broke into a jog.

The tunnel stretched out in front of her, and Maddie found a sureness in the rhythm of her steps, the beating of her heart. She pushed further, embracing the feeling as her muscles tired, as her breaths began to quicken. 

And then the tunnel opened before her, and there it was. The soft flickering glow of a streetlight somewhere in the distance. The gentle patter of rain. The outside.

Maddie stopped short as she reached the end of the tunnel. Maddie was out. Maddie was free.

She hadn't realized, until this very moment, just how much the Gallagher Academy had felt like a prison. But the mansion was probably 2.8 miles behind her, if she was estimating properly, and a world away. From here, Maddie had options. From here, Maddie could run.

Maddie stood in the icy rain for a few moments, allowing the water to drench her hair, to plaster her clothes against her body. In Alaska, if she'd done this, she would have frozen to death. Here, Maddie knew she could be back in the mansion, if she chose, dry and warm, in approximately 18 minutes. Maddie was definitely the kind of girl who could survive being cold and wet for 18 minutes.

The raindrops running down her face also hid the tears that ran alongside them, and even though there was no one around to see her, Maddie was grateful for that. What had happened to her ? Maddie's hands began to shake again as the thought crossed her mind. She had killed someone, that was what.

Maddie heard the footsteps and spun, her hand reaching unconsciously for the hatchet in her boot before she recognized Logan jogging toward her, panting, from the tunnel.

Maddie squared her shoulders and drew herself up to her full height as he came to stand in front of her. She could barely even feel the rain on her face anymore. If Maddie was truly being honest, she hadn't felt much of anything since she left Alaska.

Logan stared at her, panting, and placed his hands on his knees. Maddie waited for him to speak first, but he didn't. He simply stared at her, waiting for answers Maddie swore she would never give. Logan could wait all day for all she cared.

Maddie turned her back to Logan and stared into the distance, as if to clarify her opinion on his presence. Logan didn't move for another three minutes, although Maddie noticed that he stayed back about four feet, so that he was still inside the edge of the tunnel.

Even over the rain, Maddie could hear Logan's resigned sigh. 

"Maddie....."

Maddie spun on him. "What are you doing here?" she demanded. But even furious and damaged as she was, the pain in Logan's eyes stopped her short.

There was a desperation, a fear, that reached Maddie's core, that matched the feelings she had carried silently for weeks now.

"I'm so sorry," Logan started, but his voice cracked and trailed off. "For everything...."

And then Maddie found herself crossing the distance between them and embracing Logan as if pulled by a magnetic force. Her hands found their way into his hair as their lips met, and something changed in Logan at her touch. His hands wrapped around her waist, pulling her into him, then traveled over her sides, up her back. Maddie could feel the passion in his kiss, the hunger in his hands, like he’d been waiting a lifetime to have her in his arms again, instead of a week. Maddie's entire body burned under his fingers, but she had never felt more safe. 

It was a few minutes before Maddie realized the wetness running down her face wasn't rain anymore. Maddie's tears dripped onto Logan's skin, and he immediately pulled away and held her at arm's length. 

"That's not the reaction I usually get from girls when they kiss me," he said gently, and Maddie managed a small smile through her tears.

Logan pulled her back into his arms and rested his much taller head on top of hers.

"Oh Mad," he whispered into her hair. "You're really not ok, are you?"

It was a rhetorical question, but Maddie felt her body grow tired at the words. She'd been telling herself the same lie for weeks, but now that Logan had seen the truth, there was no going back.

"I killed someone," she said quietly. 

"You also saved a lot of people, Mad," Logan said, stroking her hair. "Two secret service agents. Your dad. Stefan and his sister. Me. And everyone else the Wolf would have hurt or killed in the future."

"None of what happened was your fault, Mad," Logan continued. "Really, it was all mine. And I am so so sorry, Maddie."

Logan held her tight against him, and Maddie could feel in his touch that he would have given anything to go back and change what had happened. That if he could, he would have done it all differently. But nothing either of them did now would ever rewrite history.

“I killed someone, Logan,” Maddie said again, and she felt her own body recoil at the words, at the truth of what she had done.

“I know, Mad,” Logan said softly, stroking her hair.

Maddie’s hands began to shake, and then her whole arms. She felt her body collapse against Logan’s, but he held her tightly. And then the tears came for real. Full-on, ugly, heart-wrenching tears. Maddie would have been embarrassed if she’d had the presence of mind to think about it. Instead, she sank into Logan’s embrace and allowed herself to be guided to the ground just inside entrance of the tunnel.

Maddie cried until there were no tears left to cry, and then she leaned her head against Logan’s chest and closed her eyes. Logan kissed her forehead. They sat in silence for a while, before Maddie felt Logan stiffen beside her.

"We should get back to the mansion, Mad," he said uncharacteristically insistently, and he gently but firmly hauled Maddie to her feet before she could respond.  "We're not supposed to be out here."

The whole situation felt off to Maddie, but she didn't argue as he took her hand and walked swiftly back down the tunnel through which they'd come. He didn't slow down for almost 12 minutes, until Maddie could tell they were back inside the walls of the mansion, and he looked back over his shoulder in the least covert manner possible for almost the entire walk. 

A shiver ran down Maddie's spine as she realized that Logan had seen something in the woods that had scared him. And somehow Maddie had missed the whole thing.

Chapter Text

When Logan woke the following Sunday morning, he could still feel the anxiety coursing through his veins. He reached an arm out, searching for Maddie's warm body beside his on the P&E mats, but his eyes snapped open in panic when his hands touched nothing but air. As his vision focused, he was almost surprised to wake up to the walls of his own room, for the first time in almost a week.

Maddie had insisted that they sleep in their own rooms the night before, and Logan couldn't decide whether it was because of the kiss, or the something else. 

Maybe both.

The night before, Logan had seen something. Sort of. Maybe.

There had been the smallest flash of light, in the trees, like the sun unintentionally glinting off a reflective surface, somewhere there never should have been one. But 12 hours later, Logan wasn't entirely convinced he hadn't imagined it.

But he also couldn't quite shake the feeling that someone had been watching them.

The thought made Logan even more eager to find Maddie, and so he threw off his blankets and stepped into the hallway.

He didn't have to go far. A sleeping Maddie opened her eyes at the sound of Logan's door, and gazed up at him from her blanket nest on the floor.

"Sleep well?" Logan asked, jokingly.

Maddie laughed, and gave a small shrug. "Better than rooming with a bunch of prima donnas."

Logan studied her for a moment. Maddie looked far less concerned about her current whereabouts than she had a week ago, even though Logan was sure she hadn't been outside his door when they went to bed.

Maddie saw his expression and shrugged again. "It's a little less upsetting when you know where you'll wake up...." she said cautiously. She stood and casually gathered her blankets, and Logan thought it best to simply gloss over Maddie's sleep-walking and move on.

"Want to go for a run before breakfast?" He asked. "If you want, we can even hold hands, and then the Gallagher paparazzi can spend the entire day trying to come up with our shipper name." Logan was joking, but Maddie's face was serious.

"What did you see last night, Logan?" she asked sternly, and Logan was again reminded that this incredible woman knew him better than anyone else.

"Nothing," he lied, but Maddie leveled a stare at him that said she didn't believe him at all, so Logan tried again. He sighed heavily to feign embarrassment. "There was a rustle in one of the bushes, and I...I got scared."

Maddie studied him a moment longer, and Logan wondered whether his second lie was any more convincing.

"I wonder if we should report it," Maddie considered.

"It was probably just a squirrel or a bird or something," Logan continued. "Please don't make a big deal out of it, Mad."

Maddie nodded slowly, cautiously. "Ok," she said finally. "But if you see literally anything else, anything at all, you have to  tell me."

Logan nodded. "Of course."

"And you have to promise you won't use the tunnels to sneak out of the Mansion ever again," Maddie said. "How did you even find them in the first place?"

"Well I've been reading up on the mansion a lot lately," he admitted. "When they rebuilt the mansion they made sure to replicate the secret passages. It was a condition of the endowment actually, some wealthy former student who insisted they were necessary for the mansion to retain it's authentic character. The headmistress's daughter apparently consulted on them, and the plans were incredibly classified. But her map on the 1,234th page of the definitive book on Gillian Gallagher's family history was not."

Maddie was silent. Then she laughed, for the first time, Logan thought, in a long time. 

"You made that up," she accused.

"I swear on my life I did not," Logan answered, smiling. 

Maddie rolled her eyes. "Guess you really have been making the best of your library study space."

Logan nodded. "I've also been really, really bored."

Maddie nodded, and Logan saw the sympathy in her eyes. "Then maybe you should be attending some of our spy classes," she conceded. "With headmistress Morgan's permission of course."

"But Logan," she continued, her face serious. "You don't have the luxury of not following the rules anymore. No sneaking around. No using what you learn here against us. If you learn with us, you become an honorary sister. You become a part of the Gallagher legacy."

Logan nodded in agreement. "I understand," he said seriously. "Now, about that run?"

Maddie nodded. "I'll meet you downstairs in ten. And if you really want to, I guess we can hold hands for a few minutes. But after that, I'm going to kick your ass."

Logan beamed. "I was hoping you would say that."

Chapter Text

The tunnel is dark, and musty, and full of cobwebs as I trail my classmates down the passageway from a safe distance. This had better be worth it, I think to myself, picking a long strand of spider web out of my hair. But when the tunnel before me begins to lighten, I see what I came for. Their silhouettes stand out against the outside light, the shapes of their bodies molding into one, as they embrace. 

They haven’t seen me following them, of course. It’s amazing, really, how few people ever see me, even when they should. Logan and Maddie really should have seen me.

I watch, pressed into a wall 200 feet back, as they settle onto the ground and begin to talk. This is good. This is all part of the plan. 

It’s counterintuitive, but my target isn’t the kind of person you can simply pull a snatch and grab on. Not unless you want to be dead immediately afterward. And I have no intention of dying. I will complete this mission. I really have a choice. And then I’ll run. I’ll become someone new, and leave this place, and everyone in it, as far behind me as I can.

A small rustle in the trees outside catches my attention. There’s a flash, an inadvertent glint off a reflective surface. I roll my eyes. How am I supposed to do my job with this kind of interference? 

Sure enough, my classmates have seen it too. They’re standing now, and walking back down the tunnel toward me. I press myself into the wall as hard as possible, hoping the small variation in the wall and the dim lighting will be enough to conceal me from view. 

It works, somehow, and Logan and Maddie walk right past, without even a glance in my  direction. Even though they really should have glanced in my direction.

I wait until they round a bend in the tunnel, and then start for the exit.

By the time I reach the opening, she has already come to stand at the edge of the trees. 

"You shouldn't be here," I snarl at her, angrily placing my hands on my hips, and drawing myself up to my full height.

The woman laughs. "Can you blame me for wanting a peak? They've grown up so nicely since I last saw them."

"You're going to blow this entire operation if you keep this up," I practically spit at her. "I am doing my part. But you have to do yours. Stay the hell out of my way."

She just shrugs. "I don't answer to you, my dear."

"You should." I snap. And then I turn on my heel and start back down the tunnel toward the  Gallagher Academy.

Chapter Text

Dear Dad,

Logan somehow talked Headmistress Morgan into letting him attend some of our classes. I guess there's a fair amount of politician in him after all. It must be nice to know exactly who you are and where you come from. I wish I knew more about myself, and about mom. Until a few weeks ago, I didn't even know that, apparently, I'd been dead for six years. Next time you decide to fake my death, you could at least clue me in.

Thanks In Advance,

Maddie

Maddie set her pen down and tucked the evapopaper letter into her notebook. She wasn't sure what compelled her to write letters she had no intention of ever sending, but it was starting to become an annoying habit.

It had taken a while for Maddie to get used to seeing Logan tagging along with Casey as she moved through the halls of Gallagher. Logan had somehow convinced Headmistress Morgan to let him sit in on some classes, but so far Logan's and Maddie's schedules hadn't overlapped. Logan had an exclusive prep school education heavy in foreign policy and culture, and he spoke four languages fluently. Maddie had spent the last six years flying through basic English, math, history, and science by way of correspondence course. It was hard to get an excellent education when your father had been telling everyone you were dead.

Just like your mother. It was a thought that had lodged itself in Maddie's head just a few weeks earlier, and refused to give. If Michael Manchester had lied to the entire world about the death of his daughter to protect her, maybe it was possible he had also lied about the death of his wife.

Eve Manchester.

It was a longshot, Maddie knew, but she couldn't stop thinking about it. What if Maddie's mother was out there, somewhere, and Maddie had never known? What if her father had kept Maddie's mother from her all of these years?

Fortunately, the Gallagher curriculum kept Maddie far too busy to spend too much of her time dwelling on her family's secrets. Between regular classes, catch-up assignments, and Logan's latest hobby -- finding as many opportunities to see Maddie alone throughout the day as possible -- she was exhausted.

But life at the Gallagher Academy was improving. Maddie had grown used to sleeping on the floor outside of Logan's room, waking up early, and going for a run around the grounds. Maddie loved the stillness of the early mornings, almost as much as she loved how powerful she felt when she let her thoughts fall away and sank into the rhythm of her legs pounding and her heart beating.

And sometimes, when they rounded the far side of the P&E Barn, where no one could see, Maddie would even let Logan hold her hand for a few hundred feet.

In all honesty, Maddie wasn't really sure if they were dating or not. There had been that incredible kiss in the rain, and Maddie's skin still tingled just thinking about it, even weeks later. Since then, there had been a lot of secret hand-holding and intentional touching. Maddie routinely found Logan's hand gently resting on her shoulder, or the small of her back at times when touching her was totally unnecessary. But every touch sent sparks of electricity racing over Maddie's skin, so she wasn't about to protest. 

Besides Logan and Casey, Maddie hadn't really made any friends since arriving at Gallagher, but she knew this was her own fault. Maddie avoided her roommates and the rest of the sophomore class as much as possible. It was hard to be the new girl in a close-knit group with four years of history, and Maddie felt uncomfortable in her skin every time she had to attend class with the other sophomores.

In the P&E Barn, Maddie could sink into her instincts, and avoid as much unnecessary conversation as possible. It was difficult to talk to your classmates when you were busy scaling a 200 foot wall or running through an obstacle course of lasers and flash grenades. 

No, it was her Covert Operations class that Maddie truly dreaded attending. Joe Solomon was a tough instructor, and Maddie understood why. Probably more than any other girl in his classroom.

But it took all of Maddie's focus and willpower to keep her mind in Sublevel One, and not let it slip back to a mountain in Alaska. For every tracking and counter-surveillance technique they discussed, Maddie's brain conjured a real-life example, and her hands began to shake at the thought. One moment she was listening to a lecture on the best techniques for subtly guiding your target toward a strategically advantageous location. The next, she was burying a snare under two feet of snow and lodging her second favorite knife in a bridge piling. 

And then her pen was clattering to the floor and all of the other sophomores were staring at her as she raced to pick it up, in the least covert manner possible, feeling Joe Solomon's judgmental gaze boring through her ducked forehead.

And so Maddie was naturally apprehensive about her first off-property Covert Operations Assignment. As she gathered with the other sophomores in the entryway, she tried her best to tune out the chatter of the other girls and calm her racing heart. 

"Maddie."

She heard her name, and turned at the sound, expecting to see Casey, but came face to face with Tiffany instead. Maddie tried her best not to let the surprise show on her face, and instead just stared at Tiffany blankly.

"Are you okay?" Tiffany asked, with a very out-of-character tone that Maddie thought approximated authentic concern. 

Maddie swallowed hard, and nodded. "Of course," she choked out.

Tiffany looked skeptical. "You look kind of sick," she said gently. "Are you sure you shouldn't stay here?"

"I'm ok," Maddie nodded.

"You know Alice had the stomach flu this morning and had to stay behind," Tiffany continued. "I know you're basically never in our room but it's still possible you picked it up."

"She's fine." Casey jumped in, arriving at Maddie's side. "Honestly Tiff, someone is going to think you're afraid she'll do better than you."

Tiffany rolled her eyes, and leveled a glare at Casey, and Maddie strongly suspected the two of them had a history Maddie still knew nothing about. Maddie started to thank Tiffany for her concern, in an attempt to diffuse the tension between her friend and her roommate, but the entire class fell silent when a young, fit, gorgeous woman in her mid-thirties, appeared at the front of their group.

"Hi there, sophomores!" Abigail Cameron called out enthusiastically. Maddie instantly recognized the woman from her interrogation at the beginning of the semester, and her heart slowed a little as she realized that Joe Solomon was far too infamous to take them on a clandestine adventure. It was a well-known secret, after all, that Joe Solomon was also supposed to be dead.

"I'm Abigail Cameron," she announced. "And yes, the headmistress is my sister. And yes, the infamous Cameron Morgan is my niece. And there's a rumor going around that the CIA Director, Edward Townsend, is also my husband. But that I will neither confirm nor deny," she said with a wink.

"We're heading out into the real world to do some practice brush passes," she announced. "Super basic spy stuff. But I will also be testing your powers of observation, so stay sharp ladies. Just because Roseville is our hometown doesn't mean there can't be intruders. You know what Joe Solomon would say," she raised her hands, and the entire sophomore class responded in unison.

"Notice everything"

"That's exactly right, Ladies," Abigail continued. Maddie saw her eyes shift in a different direction for half a second, and a small smirk slid over her face. Then she turned around, called "Let's go, ladies," and set off toward a van parked in the circular drive. 

The entire sophomore class exited the front doors of the Gallagher Academy, including one very tall, very handsome, president's son, who had fallen in at the back and casually moved along with them. He settled himself in the rear of the cargo van with twenty-three girls, and one well-seasoned secret service agent who had definitely known he was there the entire time. And seemed perfectly fine with it.

"Well," she said calmly. "Since we seem to have an even number, I'll split you into teams of two."

Abby mercifully paired Logan with Maddie, and Maddie took it as a compliment. She passed Maddie a short black wig, and Maddie folded her brown hair into it and settled it on to her head.

Abby passed disguises around the van, but paused when she got to Logan. She shuffled through an equipment trunk before passing Logan a long brown wig with thin, oily hair. He put it on good-naturedly, and was instantly transformed into a cross between John Lennon and Willie Nelson. Abby studied him critically for a moment, and then moved on. Casey became a box dye blonde, but that didn't change her hostile expression at being paired with Olivia.

"We don't normally pull out our legends for a simple training exercise in town," she admitted. "But given recent events and certain uninvited guests, I think an abundance of caution is in order."

Abby smiled at Logan with an expression that said she really didn't mind the extra work of re-styling twenty-three girls, but he had better be worth it.

"Now," she continued. "Mr. Mitchell, I trust you can tell me the three elements of a perfect brush pass."

Logan nodded, and immediately recited, "approach, distraction, delivery," like a boy who spent all of his free time using his photographic memory to memorize as many spy books as possible.

Abby nodded, and continued her oral pop quiz, calling on the other sophomores at random. Logan placed his hand on the bench beside him and brushed Maddie's fingers in the process. Maddie casually moved her hand away, and tried to ignore Logan's hurt expression. When they stepped off this van, they were going to be on the outside. In the middle of Roseville. With all the Rosevillians, or whatever they called themselves. 

Maddie knew that Abby had paired her with Logan because Abby trusted her to keep Logan safe. And Maddie had no intention of letting Abby, or more importantly herself, down.

Chapter Text

The best words Logan could come up with to describe Roseville, Virginia were "perfectly fine." There was a small downtown, with a tiny gazebo at the center, like so many of the Middle-American towns Logan had visited on the campaign trail. There was a pharmacy, facing the gazebo, that was established eighty years ago, and a young man at the counter who had probably worked there his entire life. There was an old movie theater that looked like it was desperately in need of repairs. In the middle of a weekday, all the shops were open, but none of them had customers. Who would patronize this little town besides it's residents? Logan, he supposed. And the Gallagher Girls. But who else?

Logan didn't have time to truly consider the target market of Roseville, Virginia, because a tiny earpiece was filling his head with the voices of the entire sophomore class, and it was distracting as hell.

It was difficult to think with Abigail Cameron quizzing the other sophomores in his ear, and the girls rattling off responses with pinpoint accuracy, let alone "notice everything" as he had been instructed.

But when Abigail Cameron asked him the name of the druggist, Logan heard himself rattle off the name "Josh," even though he hadn't yet been inside the drug store.

"Good," Agent Cameron responded, seeming satisfied. "Ms. Palmetto, you just passed a house numbered 130. What's the current hair color of the woman who lives there?" 

"Dark Red," Tiffany responded confidently.

After twenty minutes or so, Logan found it easier to separate the voices in his head from the voices around him, while still listening for his own name to be called. Next to him, Maddie rattled off the tag numbers of the last three cars they had passed.

Maddie accepted a fake wallet from Irene and casually slipped it into Logan's back pocket, letting her hand linger there. Then she smirked at him.

Logan couldn't decide if the smirk was about the affectionate hand-in-the-back-pocket gesture, or the fact that Maddie knew it would be a challenge for Logan to stealthily move the wallet out of his back pocket. Knowing Maddie, it was probably the latter. 

But Logan wasn't the kind of person who let opportunities pass him by. 

Logan placed a hand on Maddie's opposite hip and spun her to face him, then planted a soft kiss on her lips. A shiver ran through Maddie's body, and Logan felt very, very satisfied.

Then he gently extricated her hand from his pocket, palming the wallet back out.

"Your classmates are going to see us," Logan whispered conspiratorially, gently pushing Maddie away. "I thought you didn't want them to know we were dating." Out of the corner of his eye, Logan saw Casey skid to a dead stop across the street, her eyes just about bugged out of her head.

Maddie shrugged in response. "Guess that cat's out of the bag," she said calmly.

Logan couldn't hold back a smile as he noticed that his comms unit had gone silent while the entire sophomore class tried to decide whether or not Maddie and Logan's relationship was real or part of their legend.

Everyone except Tiffany, who was eyeballing a young man in front of the gazebo with dark brown hair and green eyes who didn't quite fit in.  He was too old to be a student at the high school, and too young to have children in town. And he just didn't have a middle-class small-town look to him. That was the best way Logan could think to describe it. This man looked far too worldly to belong in Roseville, Virginia. He could have been a teacher at Gallagher, but the ice in Tiffany's gaze told Logan that he wasn't.

The man casually licked an ice cream cone, oblivious to all of the teenagers circling the town square. Too oblivious.

"Mad," Logan started, but Maddie was already taking his hand and dragging him over to Tiffany and Casey on the other side of the street. Perhaps she thought there would be safety in numbers.

"I'm starving," Maddie exclaimed in her best annoying teenage girl voice. "Do you guys want an ice cream? There's a soda fountain over there. I'd love to grab one right now!"

Maddie caught Tiffany's eyes and gave the tiniest shake of her head. If Logan didn't know her so we'll, he never would have seen it. 

Tiffany caught Maddie's cue, and Logan did too. For whatever reason, Maddie wasn't concerned about the man with the ice cream. And Logan knew Maddie well enough to trust her on this issue.

Tiffany knew it too, and she and Casey joined them en route to the soda fountain. Along the way, Logan passed the wallet to Casey using what he thought was a pretty solid brush pass.

Maddie and Logan ordered a sundae to share, but promptly wandered down the line of shops and into the movie theater before they could eat much of it.  Nothing was playing, but Maddie asked if she could see the historic screening room, and the young woman in charge, who was wearing an unbelievable amount of pink, let them into the auditorium.

As soon as "Dee Dee" (what kind of name was that anyway??) left them alone and went back to her post, Maddie dragged Logan behind the screen and through a "staff only door," down a cinderblock hallway, and out a back exit.

"Maddie," Logan started, but the look in Maddie's eyes silenced him. Logan had seen that look before. It was a look that said Maddie was trying to save his life, and he had better not get in her way.

They turned toward a small park, off the main square.

"Look!" Maddie squealed, in a voice that was totally inconsistent with the look she'd given Logan. "A squirrel! And he has such a fluffy tail !"

At Maddie's words, Logan's comms unit went silent again. 

"Ladies and gentleman, there's a storm rolling in and we're going to be returning to campus a little early today," Abigail Cameron said calmly in his ear.

But Maddie was already dragging Logan to the other side of the park at breakneck speed. She practically threw him into the back of the school van, and then breathed an audible sigh of relief. 22 other girls promptly followed behind her. 

Chapter Text

Maddie had to think about it for a while before she was truly certain that they'd been followed around Roseville.

Maddie had first caught sight of the dark-haired woman rounding a corner near the pharmacy, as if intentionally trying to stay out sight. She'd noticed her again over Logan's shoulder, staring into the display window of the hardware store across the street, watching their reflection. And when Maddie and Logan were handed an ice cream at the soda fountain, she stepped into the store to get one for herself.

Maddie knew the adage as well as anyone else. Once is a stranger. Twice is a coincidence. Three times is a tail. Even in a town the size of Roseville.

Maddie breathed a sigh of relief as the doors of the van slammed closed behind the final sophomore.

Maddie expected to be interrogated again, but Abigail Cameron was silent and in good spirits as she collected everyone's wigs and comms units. Maddie tried to catch her eye, but Abby deftly avoided looking at Maddie during the entire drive back to Gallagher.

Abby ushered all of the sophomores back through the doors and into the entrance hall of the Gallagher Academy.

"Great job today, ladies," Abby smiled, but Maddie didn't buy it, and she got the distinct impression none of the other girls did either. "Off to your homework now."

The girls scattered, confused looks on their faces, but Maddie stayed where she was until she heard the words she'd been expecting.

"Come with me, Ms. Manchester."

Maddie and Logan stepped forward to follow Abby, but she stopped them. 

"Mr. Mitchell," she said tiredly. "I think you've done enough tagging along for one day. If you'd return to your room and stay there, I'd be very appreciative."

Maddie fixed Logan with her most intimidating stare, and he quietly mumbled "Of course, Agent Cameron," and set off for the faculty hall.

Maddie followed Agent Cameron into the Headmistress' office, and settled into a chair in front of Headmistress Morgan, Joe Solomon, and a tall, handsome, broad-shouldered man in his mid-forties, with a very intimidating, mildly annoyed expression. Honestly, with four adults and Maddie crammed into the small office, it felt an awful lot like a clown car.

"Abby," Headmistress Morgan said sternly. "It's the first field assignment of the semester. I think this is a new record, even for you." 

Joe Solomon let out a huff. "If only Agent Cameron possessed a subtle, covert bone in her entire body..."

"You are unbelievable, you know," Abby snapped. "I cover your field lessons because you would endanger our students by showing your face outside the mansion . . ."

"And yet you endanger them anyway." Joe Solomon chimed in.

The man with the shoulders cleared his throat.

"Abigail," he said, annoyed. "I didn't come all the way over from Langley to listen to you argue with your brother-in-law, so if you're not going to debrief Ms. Manchester, I really must be on my way."

Abby rolled her eyes dramatically, making it abundantly clear the relationship rumors were true. No one else would have the nerve to mock the acting CIA Director. Then she turned to Maddie.

"Maddie," she said gently. "Can you tell us what happened out there?"

Maddie explained, and, like a good agent, she shared every detail of the last two hours, and she didn't leave anything out. Not even the details she really, really wanted to leave out. But the entire sophomore class had seen Logan kiss her, so it wasn't like that news wouldn't hit the intranet rumor mill in approximately thirty seconds anyway. 

If Headmistress Morgan was concerned about Maddie kissing the Gallagher Academy's only male student in the middle of a class training exercise, she didn't show it. Instead, she remained stone-faced and nodded along in mild interest, as if she had seen all of this before.

Edward Townsend sighed when Maddie finished her retelling of the events in Roseville.

"Can you draw?" He asked, and it took Maddie a moment to realize Agent Townsend wanted Maddie to sketch the woman who had tailed them around Roseville. Maddie nodded.

Fortunately, Maddie had had a lot of free time in Alaska for otherwise useless 17th century hobbies, like drawing. She accepted a piece of regular paper and a pencil, and went to work.

Edward Townsend studied her finished sketch silently. He nodded, and passed the drawing around the table. The other adults reviewed the sketch as well, and glances were shared between the adults, but no one spoke.

Maddie wasn't the kind of girl who let her questions remain unanswered though. "Do you know who she is?"

Agent Townsend studied Maddie for a moment, curiously.

"Maybe," he said finally. 

"Maybe is a pretty good start, kiddo," Headmistress Morgan chimed in. But there was something in her voice Maddie didn't like. It sounded a lot like pity. It sounded a lot like Headmistress Morgan thought Maddie had overreacted. "Great work today."

She looked around at her colleagues, then said firmly, "Well, I think that's enough of that."

Though arguably the least intimidating person in the room at face value, even three professional operatives knew a "mom voice" when they heard one.

"Maddie, dear," she continued. "You'll stay a moment longer please."

Three professional spies left the room, leaving Maddie alone with the scariest one of all. The international spy / mom who knew about everything that happened inside the walls of her school.

"How are you liking Gallagher, Maddie?" She asked casually.

Maddie bit back a laugh. "You know," she said. "When I was in Alaska, all I wanted was noise. All I wanted was to be around other young women. People I had something in common with. It's just funny that there was this whole other world I could have belonged to that I never even knew about."

"You do belong here, Maddie," Headmistress Morgan responded. "Between your coursework and your quick thinking in the field this morning, you've certainly proven that."

"Thank you," Maddie said, apprehensively. Because she was pretty sure Headmistress Morgan wasn't finished.

"So maybe you'd like to tell me why you're having such a hard time fitting in."

Maddie stared at her, wondering what Headmistress Morgan would believe. It certainly wasn't the emphatic "I'm fine," that came out of Maddie's mouth.

Headmistress Morgan sighed.

"Madeleine," she said, and Maddie may not have ever had a mom before, but even she knew that an adult using your full name was basically never good. "Do you think I don't know everything that goes on inside these walls?"

Maddie shook her head and mumbled a "no ma'am," but the Headmistress continued.

"Then maybe you want to tell me why you never sleep in your own bed? Or why you continue to keep a hatchet tucked in your boot in violation of the "no outside weapons" policy. Or why I never see you spending time with anyone except Mr. Mitchell and Ms. DiAngelo."

Maddie was silent. Headmistress Morgan had her pegged, and she knew it. There was nothing to say.

The Headmistress studied Maddie for a few moments longer, as if she wasn't sure whether to put on her mom hat or her spy hat or her professor hat. Eventually, it seemed, she decided on a combination of the three.

"Maddie," she said gently. "Many of the young women who've passed through the Gallagher Academy in the last 150 years have been victims of trauma. What happened in Alaska would have been traumatic for anyone."

"As I told you," Maddie said quietly, "I'm fine."

"Frankly," Rachel Morgan said, more sternly this time, "I don't believe you. We're having this discussion because the Gallagher Academy has resources that could help you process what happened."

"I killed a terrorist," Maddie said calmly. "And I rescued the President's son. Trust me, I've had plenty of time to process."

Rachel Morgan continued to study Maddie, but frankly, Maddie was getting pretty tired of being studied by absolutely every adult she encountered. 

"If that's all, may I be excused?"

The headmistress stared at her a moment longer, then nodded. Maddie bolted from her seat and left the tiny office as quickly as she possibly could. She turned the corner of the hallway, and fell against the wall. Her hands smacked the stones in frustration, and she felt herself sliding down the wall toward the floor. She wanted so badly to scream. A scream loud enough to echo through three stories of stone hallways. But instead she pressed her forehead against her knees and breathed deeply, until she was sure that the tears that threatened to fall would stay safely contained in her eyelids. 

Chapter Text

Logan was worried about Maddie. In all honesty, he had been worried about Maddie in some capacity for the last seven years or so, but the current situation left the others behind in the dust.

Maddie had spent the last two months trying to convince everyone she was fine, and it was incredibly obvious to Logan that she was not. 

First, Maddie's hands started shaking the minute she started to talk or even think about Alaska. She tried to hide them. She was even pretty good at it. But Logan saw them all the same.

And then there was the fact that he woke up every morning to find Maddie on the floor outside his room. She tried to pretend she slept there intentionally, but every once in a while, she startled when he woke her, and Logan knew that wasn't where she had gone to sleep.

Logan had actually been wondering how long it would take the renowned faculty of the Gallagher Academy to start asking questions. Logan was certain they had known for a long time. Otherwise they didn't deserve to teach here. But so far, no one had said anything. 

Maybe that's what the Headmistress wanted to speak with Maddie about, Logan thought optimistically. It definitely wasn't about the woman who had tailed them through Roseville.

Logan took a deep breath and forced himself to consider the possibilities. He was the First Son, after all. Perhaps their tail had simply been a very intelligent member of the papparazzi. 

Logan would have given anything to sit in on that meeting, but he'd been banished back to his room, a victim of Maddie's withering gaze.

As Logan turned the corner of the faculty hallway, a shiver ran down his spine, and he was instantly on alert. Maybe it was just because this was the first time he'd been alone in a long time. But something didn't feel right.

As Logan cautiously rounded the corner to his room, he caught sight of a tall young man with dark brown hair, who was absentmindedly staring out of Logan's very small window.

Perhaps the most unsettling thing about this particular unsettling moment was that Logan recognized the man: he'd been out of place eating his ice cream in Roseville, but somehow, he looked right at home and totally at ease inside the walls of the Gallagher Academy. 

Logan slowly, carefully, reached for a candlestick on the bookcase near the door, which Logan had intentionally placed there to use if he needed a weapon. He never answered the door without the candlestick in his hand. A steel dagger that was more heavy than sharp was also tucked under Logan's mattress. Logan had filched it from a suit of armor in a rarely frequented hallway. He doubted anyone would notice.

"That's not what I would choose," the man said quietly, as if he could see Logan's every move through the back of his head. "I can think of about fourteen ways to kill you with that once I get it away from you, which, no offense, doesn't look like it would be that hard."

"What would you recommend I use instead, Mr. Goode?" He asked apprehensively.

The man laughed, but didn't turn around, and for a moment  Logan questioned his analysis of the situation.

"Fishing Line," he responded. And Logan couldn't tell whether or not the man was serious, but Logan suspected that if he spent enough time at the Gallagher Academy he could learn a lot of nefarious uses for fishing line. "You can keep it on you, so you're never without a weapon, like you are right now."

"What are you doing in my room?" Logan asked. His other hand moved to rest gently over the place where his panic button hung, just underneath his sweater.

Zachary Goode turned around and considered Logan.

"Nostalgia," he answered, then paused a moment. "Also, no one trusts you."

Logan laughed a little, but it sounded forced even to him. 

"Sorry," Zach said with a shrug. "But you have a reputation. And no one's going to be breaking into, or out of, the Gallagher Academy while you're here." 

"That's fair," Logan nodded. "But that doesn't explain why you were babysitting Agent Cameron's class this afternoon. I wasn't even supposed to be there."

Zach turned away from him and resumed staring out the window, although Logan was sure he was still being watched.

"You do have a nasty habit of showing up in places you aren't supposed to be," he said calmly. "Besides," he continued. "My father called in a favor." 

There was an unusual inflection in the way Zach said the word "father," so Logan pushed him on it.

"Your father?" He asked innocently. 

Zach nodded, without turning around. "Townsend."

Logan tried not to let the surprise cross his face, but he didn't do a very good job. He considered the man he'd seen in the hallway, and now that he knew the truth, he could see the dramatic resemblance between them.

"Abby's pregnant," Zach said quietly, as though he was still processing the news and simply needed to say it out loud.

"Wow, that's exciting," Logan said cautiously, in a way that sounded like a question.

Zach shrugged. "She's not an international terrorist, so at least his taste is improving."

Logan knew better than to ask any follow up questions about that particular topic. He'd read all about Catherine Goode and the Circle of Cavan, and he knew enough to extrapolate.

"My dad never calls me at all," Logan said quietly. "He barely even talked to me after Alaska. He just shipped me off here and told me I was going somewhere I'd be 'adequately supervised.'"

Zach bit back a laugh.

"Don't worry," he said. "They get over staring at you eventually."

"That's reassuring," Logan responded. 

"If you think I'm taking my eyes off you for more than eight seconds ever again, you've got another think coming."

Logan spun to see Maddie standing in the doorway, her hand on her hip. Out of the corner of his eye, he also saw Zach start a little, then turn toward Maddie in a more controlled manner.

Maddie pinned Zach Goode with her most intimidating stare. "Since you're too old to be a student, and not old or permanent enough to be a teacher, I think you'd better tell me who you are and how you came to be at Gallagher today."

Zach chuckled as he studied her. Personally, Logan thought that was ill-advised.

"Well," Zach said almost reverently. "Madeleine Manchester."

"I know my own name, thanks," Maddie snapped. "But I'm still waiting for yours. Don't you know how rude it is to leave girls waiting on you?"

Zach stepped forward and extended a palm. "Zachary Goode," he said calmly, shaking Maddie's hand firmly. "Former student, current CIA operative."

Logan saw the recognition dawn in Maddie's eyes, but only because he knew her so well.

"And how did you come to be here today?" She asked, without faltering. 

This time, only Zach's eyes laughed. Then he looked at Maddie very seriously, as if he knew exactly what kind of girl she was. As if he had plenty of experience being questioned by girls like her.

"My father is Edward Townsend," he started, and Logan couldn't help but notice the same strange inflection on the word "father." "And Joe Solomon is an old, old friend. My father asked me to help Abby chaperone your class today, and I like an excuse to visit Joe. He doesn't get to go out much, seeing as how he's been dead for seven years and all."

Zach paused and smiled at Maddie. "I suspect you'd know a little something about that," he said gently.

"How do you know who I am?" Maddie continued, unimpressed.

"Spy," Zach said, pointing to himself. "I think you'll find a lot of people in our community know exactly who you are." 

Logan thought Maddie's face paled at least two shades, as she mumbled, "that doesn't sound like a good thing."

"Well, you did save the President's son and defeat an infamous Russian terrorist leader using a flint necklace and that mouth of yours," Zach said. His tone was full of the same admiration that colored almost all of the Gallagher Academy rumors.

Maddie rolled her eyes. "People always seem to forget the part of the story where I had a pretty big knife. You'd think a bunch of government operatives would pay better attention to detail."

Zach laughed again, and Logan got the impression Maddie reminded him of someone, a little sister, perhaps. Or a girl he'd known back when he was sixteen. 

"I'll be going now," Zach said, easing toward the door. Logan saw Maddie briefly consider forcibly detaining him, but in the end, she stepped out of the doorway and let him pass. "Ms. Manchester, it was truly a pleasure to meet you. Clearly Logan is in excellent hands."

The moment Zach Goode left the room, Logan saw Maddie's shoulders collapse in relief and exhaustion. And Logan finally understood what he'd failed to see for so long: that bubbly, overly girly Maddie was mostly a defense mechanism. 

"Mad," he said quietly, pleadingly. He reached for her hands. She buried them in her pockets and turned away. But Logan wasn't taking no for an answer any longer. 

He crossed the distance between them and placed his hands on Maddie's shoulders. He felt her tense under his fingers and avoid his gaze, and Logan casually considered the fact that Maddie was perfectly capable of killing him in at least 25 different ways if she wanted to. But that didn't stop him from gently tracing his fingers down her arms and slowly extricating her shaking hands from her skirt pockets.

Maddie made a half-hearted attempt to pull her hands away, but Logan didn't let go. Instead he held her trembling fingers cupped in his own, and tilted her chin up until their eyes met. 

"Mad Dog," he said gently. "Please stop trying to hide this from me."

Maddie stared at him silently, and for once, Logan had no idea where her head was at.

"You've saved my life so many times," he said softly. "Please let me at least try to return the favor."

The silence between them was heavy, there was no other way to describe it. And then, out of nowhere, Maddie jerked her hands from Logan's and buried them in his hair. Her mouth burned against his, and Logan allowed her to part his lips with her tongue as he moved to cup the small of her back.

"Mmm...Mad," Logan mumbled against her lips. "What are you doing?"

She pulled away, looking mildly annoyed, and Logan instantly regretted his question. "I'm changing the subject," she said firmly. "I thought that was fairly obvious."

Logan laughed, and pulled her back into his arms. "In that case," he teased, "I approve of your new selection." He kissed her again, slowly, and this time he tried to let all the feelings flow through him, hoping he might telepathically pass them to Maddie without any need for further words.

Logan felt Maddie relax into him, and a rush of warmth flowed through him. He could still soothe her with his body, if nothing else.

Eventually, she pulled away, and stood at arm's length. Logan ached to draw her back to his embrace, but he could see from her face that they were about to have a serious conversation.

"Ok," Maddie said firmly. "I'm ready to talk about what happened today."

Logan nodded, and waited for her to continue.

"Do you know the person who was following us?" She asked. "And I don't mean 'do you know her name,' I mean 'have you ever seen her, even for a moment, anywhere else in your entire life."

Logan stared at her blankly. "I can't tell you," he said. "I didn't really see her today. I only got a glimpse or two, once I realized why we were having the grand tour of Roseville's best attractions."

Maddie was silent for a moment, as though she was narrowly forcing down a strong desire to choke Logan with her bare hands.

"That's bad, Logan," she said, and Logan thought Maddie was setting her expectations pretty high for a girl who hadn't wanted him to take even a single spy class. "How do you expect to prevent another Alaska from happening unless you notice everything and everyone?"

Maddie leveled her signature glare at Logan as she said "You need to know more. You need to be coming to my covert operations classes. And you absolutely cannot leave the grounds again."

Logan wanted to argue that Maddie wasn't his mother, but he knew better. So he nodded slowly, hoping that Maddie could ultimately be made to see reason.

Chapter Text

The hardest part of protection detail is keeping the target alive when the target is constantly trying to undermine your efforts.

Maddie warned Logan not to leave the grounds. He agreed. But he also had a history of escaping, and Maddie had very little faith in his ability to stay put and follow directions. In fact, Maddie thought the odds were pretty good that she'd be standing between Logan and an outside threat again in the very near future. But she had to threaten him anyway. What kind of agent would she be if she didn't? Not one who belonged at the Gallagher Academy.

Logan hadn't even noticed their tail. The thought was simply astounding to Maddie. How could he not have seen her? Because he'd been too busy kissing Maddie and deciding she was his girlfriend, and announcing it to the entire sophomore class, that was how.

Maddie felt vaguely nauseous at the thought that right that very moment, the 143 other students of the Gallagher Academy were no doubt gossiping about her. It had been a long time since Maddie had enjoyed being noticed. In Alaska, being noticed got you killed. Maddie suspected it wasn't all that different here.

"There you are," Casey skidded into the doorway and jolted Maddie from her thoughts. "I've been looking all over for you too," she said breathlessly. "I even went to your room, Maddie. Wow was that a mistake."

Maddie was quiet, but that rarely stopped Casey from rambling on about something. Maddie had learned it was far better to let Casey finish a rant than interrupt it.

"Soooo," Casey finally demanded. "Are you guys dating or what? Don't tell me you got the entire school gossiping over a legend."

Casey looked to Logan, but Logan looked pointedly at Maddie, his expression stating clearly that he would follow Maddie's lead, no matter what she decided.

Maddie considered carefully. They had told the entire school they were dating two hours ago. They spent all their time together. They kissed. They held hands. How much could putting a name to it change anything? Maddie said the word in her head, and surprised herself when it still came out in Stefan's sneering voice.

So Maddie looked at Casey and rolled her eyes as dramatically as she could. "Can we focus on the bigger picture here?" She asked. "Someone knows where Logan is and just followed us around Roseville."

"That guy in town square?" Casey asked. "Pretty brazen for any kind of professional," she shrugged. "Probably just the papparazzi."

"No," Maddie said, trying not to sound annoyed. "This woman."

Maddie pulled the sketch from her skirt pocket and slowly unfolded it, laying it on the bed between them.

"Whoah," Logan whispered in admiration. "I didn't know you could draw."

"I had a lot of free time in Alaska," Maddie said pointedly. "I'll ask you again, have you ever seen this woman before?"

Logan studied the sketch, but then slowly shook his head no.

"Casey?"

She shook her head too. "Only in Roseville today. That's a very good sketch, Mad," she continued. "Maybe even good enough to run through a government database."

"Maybe," Maddie said. "But I don't want to call attention to the situation and potentially alert anyone who might have access. Whoever was there today knew we'd be in Roseville."

Casey nodded. "It's probably best for us to just let the adults handle it," she agreed. "You're pretty safe inside the walls, after all."

Logan rolled his eyes. "What if I don't want to stay safely inside the walls forever?" He asked.

"I'm sure it won't be forever," Casey responded. "The adults are good at their jobs. That's why they're still here. Goodness, you're so dramatic."

"You know what they say," Logan accused. "If you can't do, teach."

Casey rolled her eyes in a pretty solid impression of Maddie as she said firmly, "Let me clarify. I didn't mean 'here' as in 'at the Gallagher Academy,'" she continued with liberal air quotes. "I meant 'here' as in 'alive.' So sit your spoiled ass down and stop whining."

Maddie grinned, and applauded quietly. Logan was silent.

"Is there anyone at Gallagher who could run our sketch through a government database undetected?" Maddie asked Casey. "I wonder if there's a way to do it but also and keep it under wraps."

Casey shook her head. "Not that I know of. I'll ask around though. Why? Don't tell me you're doubting the abilities of our intelligence community too?"

"I just think we should be proactive," Maddie said. "That woman today wasn't a paparazzi stalker. She knew too much. She saw way too much. And I don't like it at all."

Maddie didn't say what was truly on her mind. That it was obvious after meeting with the adults that they weren't taking the threat seriously. That they thought Maddie was overreacting.

Honestly, Maddie wondered if she'd been overreacting too. And yet, her mind kept coming back to a single thought.

Whoever had followed Logan this morning had known they would be there. Had known Logan would be there, even though Maddie hadn't known herself.

A shiver ran down Maddie's spine as she made the final connection.

Whoever had followed Logan had eyes and ears inside the Gallagher Academy.

Chapter Text

"Well, I'm off to the dining hall," Casey announced. "I'm starving. And I will covertly ask around about hacking into government databases."

"Thank you," Logan and Maddie said at the same time.

Once Casey was out of the room, Logan looked at Maddie for a long moment, trying to decide whether or not it was okay to kiss her. Logan really, really wanted to kiss her.

"Ok," Logan said quietly. "It's just us. I promised myself that I wouldn't push you, but I have to ask you something. And it's okay if you don't want to answer, or you don't answer the way I'm hoping, but I have to know. It's killing me not knowing."

Logan paused and waited for a response. Maddie raised one eyebrow at his rambling and said, "Well go ahead then. I'm aging over here."

"Are we dating or not?"

Maddie was silent for a moment considering. "I think so," she said finally. "I just. . . " she trailed off, and her hands started to shake.

Bolder now, Logan reached across the space between them and took Maddie's trembling hands in his own. "Tell me what you're thinking about right now," he said firmly. "I want to be here for you Mad Dog, but I can't unless you let me in."

Maddie refused to meet his eyes, but she continued anyway. "Whenever I think about being your . . . girlfriend . . .I hear that word in Stefan's voice. Not as an endearment, but as a taunt."

Logan stroked her fingers with his own, and said softly, "that makes sense."

Maddie shook her head angrily. "It doesn't," she spat, but the anger wasn't directed at Logan. Instead it was directed inward. And Logan swore he could feel his heart shattering into a million pieces as he witnessed Maddie's pain and remembered his own.

"Hey," Logan said "You're doing great. And no matter what you think, Mad Dog, you're not alone in this. I've been where you are right now. And I don't want to sound presumptuous, but I found my way out."

Maddie's small body leaned into Logan's shoulder, and a long breath escaped her lungs. Logan wrapped her in his arms and rested his head on top of Maddie's small one.

"Let me help you, Mad," he whispered into her hair. "And let me love you."

Maddie was quiet for a long time. Like a really, really long time. So long that Logan started to wonder if she had fallen asleep, but he didn't dare move a muscle to find out.

Finally, she whispered quietly, "Ok."

"Okay?" Logan asked, not entirely sure he hadn't imagined her tiny voice in the stillness.

Maddie nodded against his shoulder. "You said you know the way out," she said tentatively. Her voice was cracking, and barely audible, as she continued. "I don't want to keep living like this."

Logan felt his heart cracking in two as Maddie's terrified voice echoed in his ears. Maddie was the bravest person he had ever met, and yet here she was, curled up in his arms, terrified and looking to him for protection. Well goddamnit, Maddie had protected him to hell and back, and he wasn't about to let her down.

"Okay," he said firmly. "But it's not going to happen overnight, Mad. Trauma doesn't just go away when you leave it alone long enough. You have to work through it, and process it, it order to really move on."

Maddie nodded again, but did not speak. Logan felt the weight of her expectations, and tried his best not to shy away from them.

"There's something about what happened in Alaska that you haven't fully processed and come to terms with," he continued. "That's why you can't move on. It's why your hands start to shake, and why you sleep outside my room, and why you won't let me call you my girlfriend."

Logan felt Maddie recoil at the word, but her reaction only served to prove his point.

"Only you know what that is, Mad," he said gently. "And the first step is to admit it to yourself."

Maddie pulled away from him and stood by the window, her silhouette outlined in the light of the setting sun. Logan's heart thumped loudly in his chest, but he swallowed hard and forced himself to focus. This was far more important.

"With my mom. . ." Logan started, but he found the words were harder now. He had to force them past his lips. And he realized that he hadn't been this vulnerable with Maddie - with anyone - in a long time. "It took a long time," he admitted. "But eventually, I realized the reason I couldn't move on was because I couldn't forgive myself for what happened."

Maddie turned, but didn't come any closer. "That's pretty stupid," she said quietly. "You saved her, Logan. We weren't even in the room when the Russians grabbed her."

Logan laughed, but it sounded forced even to him. "I didn't say it was logical," he admitted. "In fact, it's usually not logical at all. It's about as logical to expect a ten-year-old to notice a bunch of Russians are terrorists, and not regular Russian chefs, as it is to expect a sixteen year-old girl to single-handedly stop a highly-motivated kidnapper from making off with the President's son, who idiotically advertised his safe-house on Twitter."

Maddie shook her head, then turned and held Logan's gaze.

"But I should have seen him."

Logan sighed, loudly enough to make sure Maddie heard it from across the room.

"Well, you didn't," Logan said quietly. "And you have to accept it, Mad. You can't move on if you keep beating yourself up over something that happened five months ago and 2,000 miles away."

"You almost died," Maddie snapped.

"No," Logan said forcefully. "You almost died, Maddie. It's been five months and when I close my eyes, I can still see you laying motionless at the bottom of that ravine. . ." Logan's voice trailed off as the though grew too painful, the image to vibrant. "I can still see your blood dripping into the snow. I can still see you placing your body between me and certain death . . . "

Logan felt Maddie's small arms wrap around his waist with more force than should have been possible given her size. He rested his head against Maddie's, and a tear slid involuntarily from the corner of his eye and into Maddie's hair. "I can still feel what it's like to lose you," Logan whispered, desperately. "And Maddie, it is unbearable."

"I didn't know, Logan," she whispered softly.

"It's ok," Logan nodded slowly.

Maddie brushed her fingers against Logan's cheek. "We're going to make it out of this, together."

"I know, Mad Dog," Logan said, kissing Maddie's forehead. "I wouldn't have it any other way."

Chapter Text

Mad Dog,

I heard there was a kerfluffle. You will agree this is not what we envisioned. While I am disappointed in the situation, I am proud of how you handled it. I hope you are taking extra precautions. Trust no one.

Love,

Dad

"What does that even mean?" Logan asked, looking up from Michael Manchester's sternly worded letter. "I heard there was a kerfluffle," Logan imitated. "What the hell?"

"Someone told him what happened,"Maddie shrugged. "And he's pissed. He's also probably on assignment or working somewhere and doesn't want anything useful potentially gleaned from this letter. But he only uses words like that when he's trying not to sound angry."

"Your dad's a bit paranoid," Casey laughed, leaning over to take a look. "That's a very heavy cipher for a note basically saying 'get your act together.'" Maddie and Logan leveled glares in her direction. "What, I didn't say I agreed with him!" Casey cried.

"I need more waffles," Logan announced. He stood and walked toward the waffle bar, and Maddie couldn't help but watch Logan and their table neighbors, and the people in line at the waffle bar, and the people on the lawn outside the dining hall near the windows closest to the waffle bar.

"Are you going to do that every time he's not within arm's length?" Casey teased.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Maddie said, taking a bite of blueberry pancakes, but also watching Logan's reflection in the back of her fork.

"The constant surveillance," Casey jerked a thumb in Logan's direction. "I mean, I know it's an all girls school but I don't think anyone's going to steal your boyfriend under your nose."

Maddie rolled her eyes. "Well, someone literally just tried to steal him four months ago, so I'm not about to let my guard down."

"Okay, okay, sorry I said anything," Casey mumbled, moving further down the table. "Clearly you're in a mood today."

Maddie rolled her eyes but didn't respond. Logan returned to the table and eyed the distance between Maddie and Casey warily.

"Ladies," he said cautiously. "What's going on over here?"

Casey shrugged, "Maddie's in a mood, and I'm avoiding her bad vibes."

Maddie rolled her eyes again. "Casey doesn't take your situation very seriously, and she's also apparently afraid of me."

Logan placed his tray on the table across from them, and carefully aligned it so he was the same distance from each girl. "Ok then," he said calmly. "I guess I'll just sit here..."

Logan had no more than set his tray down, when Tiffany slid in between Logan and Maddie.

"Hi!" she said brightly, staring at Maddie. Maddie was silent. "I've been trying to flag you down, but apparently the only way to get your attention is to physically place myself between you and Logan."

"Sorry," Maddie mumbled, a little chagrined. "I saw you, I just didn't think you were gesturing at me."

Tiffany fixed Maddie with a look that said she wasn't buying Maddie's excuse for a minute, but then continued. "Fine. Sure. Anyway, I wanted to talk to you because it's been an entire week, and I wanted to know if there were any leads on Logan's near abduction."

"Okay, I wasn't . . ." Logan started, but Tiffany cut him off.

"Yeah, you were," Tiffany said. "And Maddie saw the person who was trying to grab you."

Maddie saw Casey turn to study them from further down the table, leaning to closer to catch as much as possible. Tiffany saw her too, and turned her head in such a way that Casey wouldn't be able to read her lips, as she whispered, "Do they know who it was?"

"I don't know," Maddie said quietly. "I drew them a sketch, but I haven't heard anything since." She shrugged. "The adults around here aren't particularly liberal with sharing information. I wish I knew someone who could run it through the government databases for me without anyone finding out."

Tiffany nodded. "Did you ask Professor Sutton?"

Maddie thought of the tiny science professor who had almost floated away during Maddie's perfumed-smoke-bomb creation seminar last week and decided that Tiffany must be messing with her. "Elizabeth Sutton?" she asked incredulously.

Tiffany nodded, and leaned closer. "Don't tell anyone else," she said, with a pointed glance in Casey's direction. "But she went to school with the headmistress's daughter, Cameron, and she's a genius. And I know, everyone here is a genius, but Professor Sutton, she's not a legacy. She was recruited because she accidentally hacked into the government databases when she was 12. They Circle of Cavan? Their mass plan of doom was based on Professor Sutton's exam results."

Maddie didn't do a great job of hiding her surprise as Tiffany continued.

"But most importantly, she's a lot more rules optional than a lot of the other adults here."

Maddie nodded. "Thanks for the suggestion," she said, gratefully.

"Let me know what you find out," Tiffany said quietly, getting up to leave. "Logan's one of us now. And no one's going to outsmart an entire school of Gallagher Girls."

A few hours later, Maddie nervously left Casey and Logan doing homework in the lounge and went in search of Professor Sutton. The tiny young woman wasn't in her usual location - the science lab - but it was a Saturday, so Maddie didn't make much of it. She checked the faculty hall, and then began to cover the floors of the castle methodically, figuring she would eventually locate Professor Sutton. What did professors even do on the weekends? Maddie had honestly never really thought about it before.

Maddie turned a corner without checking her margins, and collided directly with Alice. Maddie's books flew out of her hands, including the notebook into which she had slipped her sketch of the kidnapping suspect, and she fought to stay on her feet.

"What the hell," Alice cried out, catching herself on the nearby window ledge. "Watch where you're going for god's sake!"

Despite her best efforts, Maddie lost her balance and landed hard on the floor, her nose still stinging from where she had collided with Alice's chin. Maddie's head swirled for a moment, but it had more to do with the memories than the fall itself.

"Here, let me help you," Alice said, sounding annoyed. She reached a hand out to help Maddie up, but Maddie jerked away, involuntarily. Her hands began to shake. She pushed them into her pockets and forced herself to find her feet. "I'm fine," she said as firmly as she could.

Alice was already gathering Maddie's belongings off the floor, and Maddie tried to race her to the notebook, but she wasn't quite fast enough. Alice casually scooped the notebook off the floor, causing Maddie's sketch to flutter to the floor.

Alice bent over to gather the paper, and set it on top of Maddie's notebook, and began to hand it back to Maddie. "Sorry," she said, "I didn't know there was something in. . ."

Then she froze, her eyes locked on Maddie's sketch.

"Why do you have a bad drawing of Casey's mom?" she asked, carefully.

Ice slid down Maddie's spine at Alice's words, as she choked out, "that's my drawing of the woman who tailed Logan in Roseville."

Alice's eyes grew wide. "How good are you at drawing?" she asked.

Maddie shrugged, but didn't answer. "How sure are you?" she demanded.

Alice shrugged. "I've never met her," she said. "But Casey had pictures of her everywhere when we lived together."

Maddie couldn't breathe as she snatched the drawing and the notebook from Alice's out-stretched hands, and spun in the opposite direction. This couldn't be happening again. She couldn't have let this happen again.

Maddie sprinted through the halls, dodging 12 year-olds and suits of armor, and not even caring that her movements were in no way covert. She had to reach Logan before Casey took him god-knew-where. Maddie raced down the stairs three at a time and rounded the corner to the lounge at top speed. Her eyes took in the scene before her as she skidded to a stop, and felt her heart rise into her throat.

The lounge was empty.

How far could they have gotten? Maddie's mind raced, as she tried to remember exactly how long she had been gone. Fifteen minutes? Twenty? Twenty-five? Why couldn't she remember now, when it mattered the most? She'd been subconsciously counting her every second for months now, how could she possibly not remember?

What Maddie did know was that there was only one way to get out of the Gallagher Academy's grounds undetected. A route Logan no doubt would have been willing to show to one of his closest friends.

Maddie slid aside the heavy fireplace panel in the common room, and stepped into the darkness. Maddie couldn't see anything. She didn't remember it being this dark the last time. Maybe this was a different branch of the tunnel than the one Maddie had climbed into before. But there was no time to go back for a light, so she would just have to feel her way out until her eyes adjusted. Maddie's hands touched the bricks on either side of her as she tried to draw a mental map of the castle and chart a course. She couldn't run in the dark, so she power-walked. Besides, she needed to sneak up on Logan and Casey if she wanted any chance of getting him back, and running was just too noisy.

Maddie's heart raced and her legs churned as she tried to anticipate what she would find around the next corner - and the next, and the next.

They won't kill him, she tried to tell herself. He's worth nothing to anyone if he's dead.

And then Maddie heard Casey's voice on the other side of the wall. Panic turned to relief, then back to panic, as Maddie listened through the wall and searched for the exit trip.

"Your time is up Logan," Casey said threateningly. "And now I need your answer."

Maddie closed her eyes, and frantically felt for the lever she knew had to be hidden in the brick. When she caught it with her thumb, the entire wall fell forward, spilling Maddie out into a part of the castle she had never seen before.

She was in a bedroom, that much was clear, but it was a bedroom that hadn't been occupied recently. The room was immaculate, like a freshly made-up hotel room, and an open closet revealed a row of neatly pressed male uniforms, waiting for their next owner. The room was all white, and it reminded Maddie of a hospital. There was nothing to make the room stand out - no pictures on the walls, no color, no signs of life.

Except for Logan, sprawled across the bed with an open textbook, and Casey, casually sitting at the desk nearby.

"Hey, Mad," Logan said brightly. "I didn't expect you to be dropping in."

Chapter Text

In retrospect, Logan probably should have considered what might happen if Maddie returned to the sophomore lounge and found that he and Casey were missing. Perhaps Logan had subconsciously considered it and just hadn't cared. Maybe that was the reason he was only mildly alarmed when Maddie came crashing through the wall and into the former third floor corridor.

Logan had learned about the former third floor corridor from Cameron Morgan's extremely helpful map of the secret passageways. The corridor was for visiting exchange students, but was rarely used. It was generally heavily secured with laser sensors and fingerprint scanners - you know, all the usual stuff - when not in use. Unless, of course, you knew the back way in.

Logan had been sneaking up to "the Treehouse," as he called it, for several weeks. It was the only place he could study, or relax, or just exist, without at least one pair of eyes watching his every move. And Logan hated to be watched.

He had told Casey about the Treehouse after she caught him suspiciously examining a suit of armor, waiting for the hallway to clear. Logan had been loathe to share the Treehouse with anyone, for fear of losing the one place he found some solitude, but Casey had been surprisingly chill about it. While Maddie was in class, Casey would walk Logan to the entrance of the secret passageway, and then let him proceed on alone.

One day, Logan was struggling with an especially difficult Farsi assignment, so he invited Casey along to help him. After that, they'd begun to sneak away for quiet study sessions. They always snuck off while Maddie was engaged in her own classes, and were back in the Sophomore lounge by the time she was finished, and so Maddie had been none the wiser. But Logan should have known she would figure out their secret eventually.

It wasn't that Logan wanted to hide things from Maddie. It was more that Logan knew Maddie's involvement would ruin the one sanctuary he had discovered. Maddie had been watching him like a hawk since he'd almost been snatched in Roseville, and he couldn't really blame her. But he knew what it was like to spend every minute of your life being monitored, even if it was for your own protection, and Logan hated it.

Besides, it was harmless. What were the chances he could get into trouble without leaving the mansion. Maddie had told him to stay inside the walls. Well, he was literally inside the walls.

But Logan hadn't thought this particular situation through carefully enough, and now Maddie was getting to her feet, looking equal parts surprised and murderous. Maddie leaped in front of Logan and squared her shoulders at Casey, and Logan was relieved that the majority of Maddie's anger wasn't focused at him. Yet.

"Stay away from him," Maddie ordered. "Turn around. Put your hands on the wall."

"And what if I don't?" Casey challenged.

"Mad, maybe we ..." Logan started, but Maddie had already taken two steps across the room, grabbed Casey, and twisted her into a pretzel on the floor.

"Get over there," Maddie ordered, gesturing Logan to stand in front of the wall that was most likely to be solid. She dragged Casey closer toward the passageway.

Logan was frozen in place as Maddie interrogated Casey.

"How many more are you working with?" she demanded. "Where are they right now?"

"Like I would tell you," Casey snapped, even as she struggled to catch her breath.

About thirty seconds passed in silence, before Casey looked at Logan and choked out, "Are you going to call her off or what?"

"Maddie," Logan said firmly, the ridiculous reality of the situation suddenly becoming clear. "Let her go. We were just studying."

"Of course that's what you think," Maddie said calmly. She didn't let go of Casey, but she did remove her hands from Casey's throat, so Logan decided that was a step in the right direction.

"Yeah, Mad Dog," Casey taunted, twisting her head around to look at Maddie. "Drop it."

"Casey you are not helping," Logan snapped. "Do. Not. Push. Her." Casey smirked at him and rolled her eyes, but kept her mouth shut.

Logan turned back to Maddie, and met her eyes. "Mad," he said quietly. "What's going on?"

"Casey's mother has been trying to kidnap you," Maddie said matter-of-fact-ly. "And I think she ought to at least tell us why."

"What the hell, Maddie?" Casey threw a blind punch behind her that collided with Maddie's cheek, and Maddie winced but didn't loosen her hold.

Maddie stared at Logan as she continued. "I went looking for professor Sutton this morning to show her my sketch and get her help running it through the databases. Along the way, I ran into Alice. She inadvertently saw my sketch and identified your would-be kidnapper as Casey's mom."

"I'm sorry, back this truck up," Casey cut in. "You trusted Alice?" Casey laughed. "Alice has never even met my mom, Maddie. No one has. She's been off the grid for fifteen years. I don't even remember her."

"Alice recognized her from a photograph you had when the two of you lived together," Maddie responded.

"A photograph?" Casey mocked. "Are you even listening to yourself right now? You matched Alice's memory of an ancient photograph to your memory of someone you saw in bits and glances around Roseville a week ago? Really, Maddie, I thought you were a legacy."

"Mad," Logan said gently. "I think you need to let go of her now."

"Let go of me, Maddie," Casey taunted.

Logan saw Maddie consider her options, and then slowly release Casey, while placing her body in front of him again.

"You see?" Casey said, gesturing at Maddie. "This is why he doesn't tell you things. This is why he never brought you here. God, you are so up in your head about Alaska that you think everyone is out to get him."

Logan felt Maddie start to quiver beside him. He reached for her hand but she jerked it away.

"Is that true?" Maddie asked quietly. And Logan didn't know what to say. Was it better to tell Maddie the truth, or let her think that he'd been sneaking around with Casey for other reasons? Logan wasn't sure, so he stayed silent. "That you feel like I've been . . ."

"Smothering him," Casey interrupted.

"I can speak for myself," Logan heard himself say. "And Casey, I think you should give us the room."

Casey rolled her eyes and reached for the passageway. "Gladly," she shrugged, absent-mindedly rubbing her neck. "Maddie, you need to work on that PTSD. It's really getting out of hand."

Maddie looked stunned and defeated and angry all at the same time, and Logan hated himself for making her look like that. Logan tried to reach for her, but she stepped further away, and her eyes were burning when they met his.

"You lied to me," Maddie accused.

"I did," Logan admitted. "I'm really sorry, Mad."

"What if I'd been right?" Maddie asked. "Did you think about that? What if Casey had tried to hurt you, or kidnap you? Haven't you learned anything? You can't trust anyone." Maddie shook her head in irritation. "I am trying to keep you safe but there's only so much I can do if you don't want to stay that way."

Logan nodded. "I'm sorry."

"God, wasn't Alaska enough for you, Logan?" Maddie continued. "I almost died. You almost died. My father almost died. Two secret service agents almost died. What has to happen for you to take this seriously? Does someone have to actually die? Because I guarantee Logan, if you keep this up, that's exactly what is going to happen."

"I know, Mad, I . . ." Logan started, but Maddie cut him off.

"Sorry just isn't good enough anymore," she snapped. "The stakes are higher now, Logan, and I need more than your empty promises from here on out. I cannot protect you if you don't want to be protected."

But what if I don't want to be protected anymore? Logan thought, though he knew better than to say the words out loud. What if I'm tired of watching everyone put their lives on the line for me? What if I'm tired of living like an animal in a cage? But Logan bit back all of those words. He knew enough to know that nothing good could come from them.

Silence fell between them, as Maddie struggled to regain her composure. Her hands were still quivering, but she folded them into her armpits and took a deep breath. Her eyes softened, and for a moment Logan could see the hurt that lingered there. For a moment, Logan could see the girl and not the spy.

"I have to ask you one more thing" Maddie asked quietly. "And you have to promise to be honest with me."

Logan nodded, his eyes locked with hers. God, how he wanted to hold her.

"Do you like her?" Maddie said cautiously, and Logan thought, not for the first time, how different Maddie was when she let down her defenses.

"No, Mad," Logan said as firmly as possible. "She's just my friend. And it kills me that you even have to ask me that. I didn't mean for it to be like this. I just wanted a place that I could be alone, and one day she caught me sneaking up here. I never meant to keep it from you. It just sort of happened."

Logan took a careful step toward her, and when she didn't move away, he took another. He reached for her hands, and she let him take them. He kissed her forehead and she didn't move away.

It killed Logan that he couldn't reach her. That she'd been trapped, alone, in her mind for the last six months. That the indefatigable Maddie he'd once known had been transformed into the girl before him, a shadow of the girl she had been, before life had gotten far too real far too quickly. This was the reason Logan had stopped himself from writing her in the first place. He'd always thought Maddie would have been better off without him.

And yet, he wanted her to himself so badly. He always had, from the first moment they'd met on the campaign trail. It was different then, of course, when they were young. Maddie had been his confidant, his partner in crime, his most trusted friend. But as they'd grown, Logan's feelings for her had changed. Logan could still remember the night he'd planned to tell her. The night that changed everything.

And then Maddie was gone, to Alaska, and Logan told himself it was for the best. The further she was away from him, the less likely she was to get hurt. And he hadn't changed his mind. He just wasn't a noble enough man to care anymore.

Logan's hands came to rest on Maddie's shoulders, and ever so gently, he pulled her into his arms, and rested his head on top of hers.

"You're the only girl I'm interested in, Mad," he said gently. "I fell in love with you a long time ago, and I don't think I'm capable of stopping."

Maddie was silent for a moment, considering. And Logan realized, not for the first time, that the real Maddie wasn't the bubbly, outgoing charmer. The real Maddie was careful, calculating, and more easily wounded than she liked to let on.

"You can't lie to me," Maddie said quietly. "If this . . . If we are going to be together, you can't lie to me."

"I know," Logan nodded. "And I'm so sorry I did that." He hesitated. "But Mad? Do you think you could back off the surveillance just the tiniest bit? At least when we're in the mansion? Maybe you don't need to watch me like a hawk every time I go to the waffle bar."

Maddie nodded silently. "I guess I have been a bit intense," she admitted. "I will try to tone it down."

"Thank you," Logan smiled, but Maddie pushed him away to arm's length.

"I want something in return," she said. "You have to start behaving like a Gallagher Girl. Notice everything. Everyone. Don't be too trusting. Always have a contingency plan. If I'm not allowed to watch you as much, then you have to help me keep you safe."

Logan nodded. "Ok," he said. "That seems fair."

"Good," Maddie nodded. "We have to keep you safe. And not just because it's a matter of national security. Also because I think I might be falling in love with you too."

Chapter Text

"And you said I was compromising this operation," she says accusingly. But every single player on this chess board is exactly where I want it. Every single player except me.

It would be too easy to say that I'm a pawn. No, in reality, I am a knight. Limited in my movements, but silent. Deadly. Unexpected.

I am going to make it out of this alive. I am going to disappear, and build a normal life somewhere they will never find me. Somewhere she will never find me.

I don't care about this blood feud. I don't care about my father. I don't care about the Circle of Cavan.

I just want my freedom.

I take a deep, measured breath, as I mentally prepare myself for what has to happen next. I hope that she has underestimated her opponents the same way she has underestimated me. I don't let myself think about the consequences. I am too deep into her web to have any chance of extricating myself now. The only way out of this is forward.

"Actually," I sneer. "Everything went exactly according to plan. We ran their defenses. Maddie is now 'the girl who cried kidnapping.' Logan is going stir-crazy, perfectly primed to do something exceedingly stupid. There is nothing left for you to do. I have done everything, as usual."

"You have, my pet," she smiles at me affectionately. But I know that it will be fleeting, as always. She reaches for me, but I brush off her embrace. I know too much now to ever find comfort in it again.

"I have to get back," I say firmly, stepping away from her. She looks surprised, and offended, but I don't wait. Every minute I'm unaccounted for is one more minute we can be discovered.

And I am not going down for this.

I am getting out of this alive.

Chapter Text

Maddie had never been hungover, but on Monday morning she wondered if the fallout from a bad argument could make you feel the same way.

Every step felt heavy as Maddie made her way toward her usual table in the dining hall. She hadn't seen Casey since their argument the night before, and she was dreading it. Because no matter what Casey had said, and no matter what Maddie wanted to believe, a niggling voice in the back of Maddie's head kept repeating her father. Trust no one.

"Wow, you really don't look where you're going," Tiffany laughed as she narrowly avoided colliding with Maddie. Maddie's cheeks turned red. "Mandatory roommate meeting at 2:30," Tiffany said. "I would have told you this morning, except that you're never actually, you know, in our room."

Maddie had been wondering how this day could get worse. Well, Tiffany had given her an answer.

"But Logan. . ." Maddie started.

"Will be in the safety of the freshman Culture & Assimilation class," Tiffany finished for her. "I'm pretty sure Madame Dabney can handle him."

Damn. Tiffany had clearly thought this through, and Maddie was out of excuses.

"If you insist," Maddie shrugged. "Then I'll be there."

"Great," Tiffany said. Then she turned and made her way toward the breakfast meats, leaving Maddie standing in the middle of the dining hall, alone.

There was only one thing left to do. Maddie placed her tray on the table across from Casey and sat down. Casey lifted an eyebrow in Maddie's general direction, but stayed silent.

"I'm sorry," Maddie said quietly. "About yesterday."

Casey nodded. "I get it," she mumbled. "You'd do anything to keep that idiot safe."

Maddie nodded.

"And I was egging you on."

"You kind of were," Maddie agreed.

"And I also probably should have told you about the Treehouse."

"That too," Maddie agreed. "Friends don't sneak off with other friends' boyfriends," Maddie said indignantly. "Or mock their post-traumatic stress."

Casey nodded, but stopped short of an actual apology. Maddie decided to let it slide.

"What was that about?" Casey asked, nodding at Tiffany.

"Nothing," Maddie shrugged. "Mandatory roommate meeting," she said, emphasizing the words with air quotes. "No doubt Olivia is upset about the world war three that's breaking out in our closet. Or someone borrowed Alice's pearl earrings without asking . . . It's always something inane. I should honestly be exempt since I spend approximately 3 minutes a day there."

Maddie made light of the situation in an attempt to shift her relationship with Casey back in a positive direction. It was a struggle, but fortunately, Maddie was pretty good at lying. Sometimes she could even convince herself.

"Oh good," Logan exclaimed, sliding a tray in beside Maddie. "The two of you made up."

Both Maddie and Casey nodded unconvincingly.

"In italiano, signor Mitchell," Dr. Fibbs reprimanded as he passed, and Logan fell silent, primarily due to his limited vocabulary.

Maddie wandered through her classes that morning in a haze, spouting Farsi and organic chemistry, and learning how to kill a person with headphones and a lipstick.

At 2:30, during her study break, she snuck back to her assigned room for the mystery meeting. She was the last to arrive; Tiffany, Alice, and Olivia were already waiting.

"Wait, who is this?" Olivia asked Tiffany as Maddie entered the room. "I've never seen her in here before."

Tiffany laughed, and chucked a pillow at Olivia, and for the first time, the thought crossed Maddie's mind that maybe she had been missing out on something.

Maddie sat on her assigned bed, and turned to Tiffany. "So what's this about?"

"This is an intervention," Tiffany said calmly.

Maddie tried to hide how ambushed she felt as she asked, "About what?"

Alice laughed. "Well, Casey for starters."

"Also, you have PTSD, girl," Olivia chimed in. "And everyone in school knows it except you."

"And then there's the whole Logan thing," Tiffany added.

"Your life is such a hot mess it's hard to even know where to begin," Olivia said.

Maddie was dumbstruck, but she knew they were all right about one thing. Her life was a "hot mess." She just wasn't sure why these three young women would want to help her fix it.

"Why are you doing this?" Maddie asked, gesturing to Alice and Olivia. "All the two of you have ever done is bully me."

Alice and Olivia looked a bit chagrined.

"Yeah," Alice admitted. "I was really mean to you when you first got here and that was super not ok. I'm sorry. I was really intimidated when I heard the rumors about you saving the president's son in Alaska."

"So what changed?" Maddie asked.

"Well, we met you," Olivia quipped.

Tiffany chucked another pillow at her and snapped "stop that," before turning to Maddie. "What Olivia's trying to say is that we remembered that Gallagher Girls are a team. A sisterhood. And you're one of us now."

"Besides," Alice chimed in. "We couldn't sit by and let Casey take out another member of our sisterhood."

Alice instantly had Maddie's full attention.

"I'm going to need you to clarify the phrase 'take out.'"

"You still don't know why we kicked her out of our group, do you?" Alice asked. Maddie shook her head in response.

"There used to be twenty -four sophomore Gallagher girls," Alice continued. "Until one of them dropped out at the end of last semester, conveniently leaving an open spot for you."

"People don't just drop out of the Gallagher Academy," Tiffany offered. "In fact, it's never actually happened before. On a rare occasion, someone has been kicked out. One girl died of Diphtheria in about 1893. But no one voluntarily leaves."

"We don't know all the facts," Olivia admitted. "But the girl who left, Casey was pretty much her only friend."

"Not at first," Tiffany chimed in. "At the beginning she had a whole group. But over time Casey isolated her from everyone else. And then I guess she turned on her. Rumor has it Casey manipulated her into believing she didn't belong here. And eventually she quit."

"Well what did she tell Headmistress Morgan?" Maddie asked.

"She said she missed her family and that she didn't want a clandestine life and that she didn't feel safe here," Tiffany explained.

Alice rolled her eyes. "All of which is bullshit, obviously."

"Ok," Maddie nodded. "So you kicked her out of your group because. . ."

"Because we couldn't trust her," Alice finished. "As I'm sure you know by now, most Gallagher rumors are 60-90% accurate."

"There's one other thing you need to know," Alice said firmly. "Her mother was with the Circle of Cavan before it fell."

"She told me that," Maddie said calmly. "What of it?"

"Well rumor has it, she was a double agent in the NSA when the Circle fell," Tiffany explained. "Apparently her mom went off the deep end and Casey ended up with her Mom's sister, who raised her. But she's still out there, and she's got a score to settle, if you know what I mean."

"How does this come back to me?" Maddie asked. "I'm not going to hold her responsible for her parents' mistakes."

"Well your sketch for one," Alice said calmly.

Maddie shrugged. "I showed it to her. She said it wasn't her, and that she hadn't seen or spoken to her mom in years."

The others stared at Maddie in silence. "What?" Maddie demanded.

"Well, first, that's exactly what someone who's in cahoots with her terrorist mother would say," Olivia commented, rolling her eyes.

"And second," Tiffany chimed in. "I'm fairly certain that's not true."

Tiffany turned to her nightstand and reached into the top drawer. She pulled out a postcard and silently handed it to Maddie.

C:

Excellent job this semester.

"Okay?" Maddie asked. "This is just a postcard? It's not even signed. How do you know it's not from her Aunt?"

"Alice found it right after Jessica left," Tiffany said. "I took it to Headmistress Morgan, but she didn't think much of it. So I asked her to move Casey out of our suite, and she allowed it."

"Which means that, no matter what she says, she kind of believed you," Olivia chimed in.

"What else have you got?" Maddie rolled her eyes, brushing them off, but doubt had already seeped into her mind, and she filed this new information right beside the other things she had learned.

"That's all," Alice admitted. "Yours to do as you like with."

"But Maddie," Tiffany continued. "Be careful. Especially with Logan."

Maddie nodded. "Anything else you'd like to cover?" She asked.

"Yeah," Olivia said. "You're not okay, and everyone knows it."

"I'm fine," Maddie said firmly.

"Oh sure," Olivia said sarcastically. "That's why your hands shake every time the lecture topic touches on anything that reminds you of your Alaskan adventure right? Yeah, I notice when you space out in class. How you spend all of Cove Ops looking like you're about to crawl out of your own skin."

Maddie was silent. There wasn't much she could say, because Olivia's words were true. The girls at the Gallagher Academy noticed everything.

"So what can we do to help?"

It wasn't the first time someone had offered to help her, but something about Olivia's expression, the genuine concern on her face, drew Maddie in and made her feel safe.

"I wish I knew," Maddie admitted. " I keep thinking it's going to get better, and it doesn't. It's the little things. They just . . . send me back there."

"I mean you killed someone," Alice said, matter of factly. "At least if the rumors are true, that is."

Maddie nodded silently.

"In here," Tiffany explained. "We get training on mental self-preservation. That's not what they call it, but that's what it is. It starts when you're really young, and they train you to think, to process, in a certain way. In a way that protects you. The things you're exposed to in this life, this job, they can really screw up your head."

"But you didn't have any of that," Olivia said. "So it's not a surprise that you're struggling so much."

"Olivia's mom is a high security clearance trauma psychiatrist," Alice reported. "She works out of Langley."

"If you want," Olivia offered. "We can ask Headmistress Morgan to arrange some phone sessions with her."

Maddie nodded. "Thank you."

"You'll get through this, girl," Olivia encouraged. "And you'll come out stronger for it."

"Which brings us to Logan," Tiffany said.

"Oh yeah," Alice chimed in. "Now we're at the fun part."

Maddie rolled her eyes. "What do you want to know?"

"Does Rachel Morgan know you sleep in his room every night?"

"Outside," Maddie corrected. "And yes."

Alice looked pointedly at Olivia. Olivia rolled her eyes, and passed Alice a $20 bill.

"Wow, okay," Tiffany said, surprised. "You two are just betting on people's lives now."

"Pretty much," Olivia smiled. She looked at Maddie as she explained "They're counterfeit."

"That doesn't make it better," Tiffany commented. She turned to Maddie. "I think you guys are cute together."

"Thanks," Maddie said. It sounded like a genuine compliment.

"You should hang around more," Tiffany continued. "We're not as bad as Casey makes us out to be."

Maddie nodded and stood to leave. "I'll take that under advisement. But right now I'm late for cryptology."

Maddie didn't stop thinking about the meeting with her roommates for the rest of the day, and when she finished her homework late that evening, she reached for her pad of evapopaper and began to write.

Dear Dad,

You've always said to trust no one. I think you taught me that lesson a bit too well. Sometimes I wonder what my life would be like if you hadn't. I'm sure you'd say that I'd probably be dead.

See? I don't even need your judgmental letters and condescending advice anymore. I can script your half of the conversation all by myself.

Thanks,

Maddie

Maddie rolled her eyes as she signed her name, and immediately threw the evapopaper into the fireplace, even though she knew she could have just eaten it. It was the gesture that counted, after all. And then she crushed her father's latest letter into a ball without opening it, and tossed that into the fire as well.

Chapter Text

Maddie was going to be late for covert operations. Her Countries of the World lecture had run two minutes longer than usual, but she didn't expect Joe Solomon to understand that, especially not when Maddie took COW with the eighth graders, and she would be the only person late to his class.

Maddie's hurried footfalls echoed in the empty hallway as she raced toward the end of the corridor and the sublevel 1 elevator that occupied it.

"Maddie," a familiar voice called from behind her. "Can I have a minute?"

Maddie groaned internally as she turned to face Abigail Cameron.

"I would love to, professor, but I'm late . . ." Maddie started, but Agent Cameron cut her off.

"Joe Solomon can wait." She said authoritatively. "I'm here at the request of your father."

Maddie tried to hide her embarrassment and annoyance, but she suspected it wasn't very convincing.

"You see," Agent Cameron continued. "He apparently hasn't heard from you all semester, and since he and I are old friends, I offered to check in with you for him."

Maddie nodded.

"Do you want to tell me why you haven't been writing to him?" Agent Cameron asked gently.

"I've been very busy with school," Maddie lied. "Trying to catch up from 4 years back is pretty challenging."

Agent Cameron rolled her eyes. "Try again," she said.

Maddie sighed and tried another lie. "Being a Gallagher Girl has been more difficult than I expected, and I don't want him to change his mind about me going here."

Agent Cameron nodded. "I can see why you might feel that way." She placed a hand on Maddie's shoulder as she continued. "I know your father never told you about the Gallagher Academy, but I think if you hadn't been in Alaska when you started seventh grade, he would have sent you to us despite his misgivings." She smiled. "You belong here, Maddie, and everyone knows it."

Maddie saw an opportunity, and she took it.

"You and my Dad were in the secret service together, right?" she asked innocently.

Agent Cameron nodded. "He was my first CO," she said. "And a bit of a mentor at the beginning of my career."

"Did you also know my Mom?"

Agent Cameron was silent for a moment as she studied Maddie, as if something about Maddie's line of questioning took her back a long way, to places she didn't really want to revisit. It was the same look Maddie's dad had whenever the topic of her mother had come up, and so Maddie had stopped asking. But Maddie was an operative now. And this was a chance to find answers she might never get again.

Eventually, Agent Carmon nodded, and said tightly, "I did."

"My dad's never told me anything about her," Maddie said sadly, pouring on . "So imagine how strange it was to come here and find out everyone knew more than me."

Maddie forced a tear from the corner of her eye for dramatic effect. "My dad said she died in a car accident, but now I'm pretty sure that's not true," Maddie sniffled. "I didn't even know she was a Gallagher Girl until I got here and heard other people gossiping about it."

When Maddie looked up, Agent Cameron's face had softened, and she was looking at Maddie with a combination of concern and pity.

"Come with me," Agent Cameron said, gently placing a hand on Maddie's shoulder. "I have to show you something."

Maddie walked with Agent Cameron down the hallway and up the stairs to the third-floor trophy hall. They stopped in front of a trophy case. Agent Cameron gestured toward a shield in the center of the case, engraved with 150 years' worth of names. The name in the center was that of the school's founder, Gillian Gallagher. Other names spiraled out around it, moving toward the edges of the shield. And there on one of the far-left panels was the name of Maddie's mother.

"What's it for?" Maddie asked.

"Courage under fire," Agent Cameron said. "The shield was gifted to Gillian Gallagher after she saved the life of President Lincoln. She later decided to add the names of every Gallagher Girl who foiled a presidential assassination attempt right beside hers."

"Your name's on here too," Maddie commented.

"Yeah," Agent Cameron said quietly. "Right next to Eve's."

Maddie knew better than to ask for more details.

"You're right, Maddie," Agent Cameron continued. "Your mom didn't die in a car accident. She died trying to stop the Circle of Cavan from killing the President of the United States." Agent Cameron took a deep breath, and looked away, unable to meet Maddie's eyes. "She died because she took a bullet that was meant for me. Your mom was a hero, and it's about time someone told you that."

Maddie wasn't sure how she was supposed to feel. So her mother really was dead, and she had died protecting the President of the United States, and her own colleagues. She really had been a Gallagher Girl. Maddie had been a legacy her whole life and never even known it.

Maddie didn't know how she was supposed to feel. But all she felt was numb.

The first coherent thought Maddie had was that she couldn't waltz into CoveOps 20 minutes late.

"Mr. Solomon. . ." Maddie started, and Agent Cameron immediately composed herself.

"Of course," she said calmly. "Take the rest of this period as a study hall. I'll make sure he knows I kept you."

As Maddie retreated to the sophomore lounge, her head began to spin. There was so much her father had never told her, and so much she still wanted to know. What about her mother's family? Did they exist? Did they know about Maddie? Why had she never met them? She'd asked these questions in the past, but her father had always deflected them.

And how did Abby fit into the picture? Maddie suspected she still knew a lot more than she was letting on.

Maddie pulled a piece of evapopaper from her notebook, and scribbled hastily.

Dear Dad,

Not telling me Mom was a spy is forgiveable. Not telling me Mom was a Gallagher Girl is forgiveable. Not telling me Mom died a hero while saving the president really just isn't.

Thanks for the heads up.

Maddie

Maddie spun toward the door at the sound of footsteps to see Logan crossing the threshold. Logan saw the look on Maddie's face and immediately crossed the room and gathered her into his arms, and Maddie might have been annoyed or offended by his paternalistic gesture, if it hadn't been exactly what she needed in that moment.

"Mad Dog," Logan said gently. "Tell me what happened."

Maddie choked back the tears that were finally threatening to fall, and pressed the evapopaper letter into Logan's palm. He looked at it briefly before holding her closer and whispering into her hair, "oh, Maddie. . ."

There was sadness and sympathy in Logan's voice, but no surprise, and so Maddie pulled away, and said indignantly, "you knew?"

Logan nodded slowly. "I was reading about the trophy hall a few weeks ago, so I snuck the book out and took it over there. I found the shield, and . . . Well, then I noticed your mother's name on it. I didn't know anything else, I just put two and two together. I didn't really think it was my place to bring your attention to it."

Maddie rolled her eyes. "Apparently my Dad shared your opinion. Not once in the fifteen years since my mother died has he uttered more than 3 consecutive sentences about her.

"I'm not taking his side," Logan said gently. "But it probably really hurts him to think about her."

"That doesn't give him the right to deprive me of any meaningful knowledge of who I am and where I come from," Maddie insisted. "He could have at least told me before I came here."

"Yeah," Logan agreed. "That was super not cool. Especially since a lot of the people here knew more than you did."

Logan paused for a moment before he continued.

"Hey, Mad," he said cautiously. "You don't think whoever's after me could be related to the Circle of Cavan, do you?"

Maddie studied him carefully. "You have a theory, don't you?" She asked knowingly.

"Well, this is probably crazy," Logan prefaced. "But remember how my Dad beat the Winters / McHenry campaign almost 8 years ago?"

Maddie nodded. "Of course I do."

"Well didn't Mr. Winters turn out to be one of their inner circle? I know they're all allegedly gone now, but what if someone out there is still holding a grudge, and they're coming after me and my family?"

Maddie considered Logan's idea carefully. "Well, it's a theory," she said finally. "But right now we haven't got any evidence to back it up."

Logan looked a little disappointed, so Maddie added, "I'll run it up the flagpole, though. But I think if there were rumblings that the Circle of Cavan was making a comeback, someone would have heard about it. I know we didn't get every single agent the last time, but the rest were driven far underground. They left their crimes in the past and embraced the opportunity to start over."

"Oh yeah," Logan rolled his eyes, and his voice was thick with sarcasm. "That sounds like all the bad guys I know. They're just longing to be normal people."

Maddie shrugged. "A lot of people were recruited into the Circle under false pretenses, and then were unable to escape."

"Ok," Logan said. "And for every one of those, there's another who's a happy, willing, member of a terrorist group. What happened to all of those people?"

Maddie sighed. "The truth is, Logan, there are a million people out there who could benefit from holding you for ransom. And even though we tried to keep what happened in Alaska very quiet, people in our community talk. And sometimes they talk to the wrong people."

"So how do we bring this to a head," Logan asked. "I can't live like this, Mad. We need to find out who's after me once and for all. We need to find a way to flip the table, make them come to us."

Maddie nodded. "You're right," she agreed. "I think this has gone on long enough. Whoever is after you isn't just going to go away. We need a plan."

Chapter Text

Logan hadn't honestly expected Maddie to agree with him, but he was incredibly relieved that she did. Maybe she was finally starting to understand what it was like to live like an animal in a zoo, with people feeding you bits and pieces of information on a need to know basis.

Logan was tired of waiting for his destiny to find him. He knew he had to do something, with or without Maddie's help. And history had proven he made better decisions with Maddie by his side.

The plan was relatively straightforward. Whoever had been following Logan had some knowledge of the Gallagher Academy's schedule and access points. They had been watching the secret passageways. They had been lying in wait in Roseville. All Logan and Maddie had to do was give them a reason to surface, and be on the offensive.

The first step was to arrange a school outing, somehow, even in the midst of the current climate. Maddie actually thought this might be the hardest part. The Gallagher Academy had felt like it was one incident away from entering full lockdown since Logan's mishap during CoveOps.

Once a field trip was authorized, Maddie would recruit someone to dress as Logan and draw out the would-be kidnapper. Logan would stay safely hidden at the Mansion, until the operative had been neutralized.

Logan had to admit that he didn't love the plan. He would much rather have been out in the field, working on his own behalf. But Maddie had insisted that his presence would only make the mission more dangerous for everyone else involved, and so he had accepted that history would look upon him as a coward. That he would look upon himself as a coward. But it was better than knowing he had put Maddie at increased risk, again.

There was an Easter craft fair coming up at Roseville Presbyterian in just a few weeks, and Logan and Maddie decided it was the perfect opportunity.

Maddie approached Alice with a portion of the plan. Alice approached Headmistress Morgan and asked for a school-sanctioned field trip. After all, they could all use some retail therapy before finals. Headmistress Morgan had reportedly been very hesitant to permit such a trip, but when Alice informed her that under no circumstances would Logan be leaving the mansion, she calmed slightly. When Alice casually threatened to tell her mother who happened to sit on the board of trustees that since Logan's arrival at the school, the Gallagher Academy had become something of a police state, Rachel Morgan relented. Although she did vehemently deny the police state allegations. Alice was the only person Maddie knew who had enough clout to pull off the first part of the plan, and was also relatively trustworthy.

Other pieces of the plan were falling into place, although Logan and Maddie were careful to tell each participant only what they absolutely needed to know.

Upon hearing of Alice's role, Tiffany offered her services to tail Casey the night of the craft fair. Maddie had no choice but to accept.

But all of Maddie's planning might have been for naught because a week out from the festival, she still hadn't located an appropriate Logan doppelganger.

Despite Maddie's assurances, Logan had been more concerned about this part of the plan than any other. The Gallagher Academy was an all-girls school, and the only other males for miles were faculty members. Logan hardly expected Joe Solomon or Professor Smith to go along with the plan. Passing off balding, middle aged men as a seventeen years old Logan was also bound to be difficult, even with Maddie's makeup skills.

But Maddie seemed unconcerned, and Logan trusted that she had everything well in hand. A few nights before the craft fair, Maddie looked at Logan knowingly, and said confidently, "That's the last piece."

Logan rose and slid in next to Maddie on the sofa so he could see her thoroughly hidden computer screen, and indicated for her to show him. Maddie opened a confidential chat tab on the unauthorized intranet, and revealed a conversation with a user whose screen name was "ZK Fine."

MadCheeta: I need a favor, no questions.

ZK Fine: That's a big ask.

MadCheeta: Are you in or not?

ZK Fine: Yes.

MadCheeta: 36. Tell no one.

It took Logan approximately 45 seconds before he connected the screen name on Maddie's chat to the dark-haired, mysterious young man who had stood in his room just a few weeks earlier.

"How do you know that's really him?" Logan asked, skeptical. Maddie rolled her eyes.

"First, I'm a girl. Second, I'm a spy," she responded. "Do you need me to go on?"

Logan shook his head. He knew better than to argue with Maddie's intuition, either the girl kind or the spy kind, and definitely not the girl-spy kind.

The final 36 hours before their op went so slowly to Logan that it felt like a week. There was very little Logan could do to help prepare. Maddie was waiting to provide final briefings to her team at the last possible moment, to avoid giving anyone the opportunity to share or discover them. And even though Logan knew he shouldn't be thinking it, he couldn't help but appreciate how sexy Maddie was when she was in secret agent mode.

A scraggly but still ruggedly handsome Zachary Goode appeared in the doorway of Logan's room at 7pm the night before their mission. He glanced around briefly, looking for Maddie, and was clearly surprised when he didn't see her.

"Do you know where I might find Ms. Manchester?" He asked carefully.

"I do," Logan nodded. "But she would like you to wait here."

Zach nodded, and stepped across the room to stare out the window at the grounds. "I just got back from a job in Chicago, so I thought I would stop by and visit Joe for a few days."

Zach sighed. "I swear, no matter how long it's been, if I stand in this spot and look out at the grounds, I'm always seventeen again."

Logan studied Zach carefully for a moment, considering. Zach did have a tendency of showing up every time someone came after Logan. And he certainly knew the ins and outs of the Gallagher Academy as well as anyone. But Maddie trusts him, Logan thought to himself. So he forced himself to push his suspicions aside.

"The famous Zach Goode," Maddie said brightly, rounding the corner. "What a nice surprise." She paused for a moment, studying Zach, and cocked her head. "Is there a reason you haven't shaved in at least . . ." she trailed off, her brain making the connection.

"Three days?" Zach chuckled. "You said no questions, Manchester," he shrugged. "I wasn't sure what you'd need."

Maddie surprised both of them by leaning in and wrapping her arms around Zach in a friendly hug. "Thank you for coming," she said.

Zach looked as surprised as Logan felt, but he smiled and looked down at Maddie affectionately, like one might a younger sister. "It's nothing," he said. "Glad I can help. What do you need?"

Maddie took two steps back and closed the door to Logan's room behind her. "For starters, I need you to stand next to Logan." Zach did as he was told, and Maddie studied the two of them together. Zach was almost three inches shorter than Logan, and his hair was almost four shades darker, but they had the same lanky, fit build. Maddie nodded, pleased with herself.

"I can make it work," Maddie said confidently. Zach glanced at Logan, and understanding dawned on his face.

"No. . ." he started. "I can't impersonate a hoity toity politician's son with no. . . "

"Goode," Maddie snapped, a warning in her tone. "No questions, you agreed." Zach rolled his eyes, but Maddie leveled a glare at him. "Also, you are such a liar."

"Spy," Zach pointed to himself and shrugged. "You're lucky I like you, Manchester."

"Yeah about that," Maddie said calmly. "Why?"

Zach stared at her, puzzled. "Are you . . .interrogating me about why I like you?"

"Yeah," Maddie said firmly. "It's honestly super suspicious and I can't believe I hadn't considered you as a potential suspect before, which, I'll admit, I probably should have done before I invited you into a room with the target."

Zach bit back a smile, and said seriously, "Frankly, I expected better spy-craft from you, Manchester. I mean, I thought an impulsive sixteen-year-old boy would be an easy mark, but you basically just invited me over to grab him."

Logan blinked, and when he opened his eyes, Zach was in a headlock on the ground, with Maddie's 120-pound body anchoring his to the floor. But Zach didn't look like a supervillian whose plot had just been foiled. In fact, he let out a laugh, which Logan figured must be difficult with someone standing on your chest.

"There's your answer," Zach choked out. "That's why I like you."

"Because I'm half your size and can still kick your ass?" Maddie asked.

"Because you remind me of some truly formidable women I studied with during my time here," Zach wheezed. "Including one I'm still very much in love with." Maddie loosened her grip just enough to allow Zach to breathe normally, but not enough to allow him to get up. "Besides," he continued. "I'm sure you've researched me. I'm sure you know where I've been. Who I've been. And I'm sure you know that I'm never going back. Otherwise, Maddie," he said, and Logan could hear the respect in his voice. "You wouldn't have asked me here."

"There is one other sticking point," Maddie said calmly. "You're awfully chummy with the higher-ups. Headmistress Morgan and Joe Solomon are practically your adoptive parents slash in-laws. How do I know you won't let them know what we're planning?"

Zach considered carefully before answering.

"I probably should," he said finally. "But I haven't yet."

Maddie raised her eyebrows. Zach met her gaze.

"I can't promise that I won't," Zach said.

Logan watched Maddie's face, inscrutable, as she considered her options. She thought for almost thirty seconds, motionless. Finally, she nodded. She lifted her body off of Zach's. She grabbed Zach's arm and pulled him onto his feet, it seemed, Logan thought, just to show him she could.

"Ok," Maddie said, with more intensity in her eyes than any sixteen-year-old should be able to muster. "I'm ready to brief you on the plan."

Chapter Text

Maddie,

Abby told me what happened. I'm sorry you had to find out like that. I know I should have been the one who told you the truth. I did a lot of unforgivable things after your mother died. Keeping her from you was only one of them. For what it's worth, she would be so proud of the young woman you've grown up to be. I know I am.

Love,

Dad

Maddie wished she hadn't opened the letter. But once she'd read those words, they wouldn't stop playing on a loop through her head. They almost made her question what she was about to do, almost made her call off the whole operation. Almost, but not quite.

It was Logan who kept her moving forward.

Logan, who had wrapped Maddie in his arms the minute Zach had left the night before, rested his head on top of hers and sighed heavily.

"What?" Maddie demanded, indignantly. "You don't think this will work?"

Logan was silent. His hands ran down Maddie's arms and settled around her waist. His lips grazed the top of her head, and Maddie swore he took a moment to smell her hair before he answered.

"I have complete confidence in you, Mad," Logan whispered. "But I also know how dangerous this is. And I'm so afraid of losing you."

Maddie's hands found Logan's and grasped them tightly, and she leaned her small body against his broad chest.

"You're not going to lose me," Maddie said firmly.

Logan kissed her forehead and said, "I'm holding you to that, Mad Dog."

Maddie pulled his face down to hers, and kissed him. He kissed her back, hard, his hands moving to rest along-side her face, his body rising up to meet hers.

"Stay tonight?" Logan's lips were at her ear, a hoarse whisper thick with longing, and Maddie felt an emotion burning deep in her core, as she nodded her head up and down in an answer.

Logan lifted Maddie off her feet and kicked the door closed before gently setting her onto the bed and laying down beside her. He stretched a blanket over the two of them, and moved so that Maddie's back rested firmly against his chest, and his arms wrapped around her.

Maddie shivered, involuntarily, at the sparks that flew against her skin with Logan's touch, but he moved away when he felt her shudder.

"Is this okay?" Logan asked, concerned. "It's not too much like Alaska is it?"

Maddie contemplated his words for a moment. It was like Alaska, she realized. But, maybe for the first time, Maddie's mind hadn't automatically taken her back there. Maybe Maddie really was getting better.

"No," Maddie said, finding Logan again. "I like it."

"Good," Logan said, and Maddie could hear the smile in his voice. "You need actual rest. And I just needed to be with you tonight."

Maddie's hand found his and she rubbed small circles against his palm with her thumb. "It's going to be okay," she said firmly.

"Of course it is," Logan whispered into her shoulder. He was silent for a while, and Maddie started to drift off, safe and warm in Logan's arms. There was something magical about allowing yourself to be vulnerable with someone. A kind of honesty and trust Maddie had never experienced before.

When Maddie was almost asleep, Logan broke the silence.

"Mad?" he asked quietly, as though he'd been thinking about it a long time. Maddie mumbled a response.

"Do you remember that night of the state dinner when my mom almost got abducted?"

"Mhmm," Maddie murmured, groggily.

"I got you that necklace," Logan said thoughtfully. "Because I was going to tell you that you weren't just my friend anymore. That's how long I've loved you, Mad Dog," Logan continued. "And I just wanted you to know."

They were the last words Maddie had heard before she finally fell asleep, and they were the words that continued to echo in her mind as she hiked toward Roseville with Zach in tow.

Maddie and Zach had missed the bus into town intentionally. Maddie's makeup job might have fooled a stranger, but it wouldn't have fooled a single Gallagher Girl at close range. It definitely wouldn't have fooled Agent Abigail Cameron, the designated sophomore class chaperone.

Maddie set a swift pace through the woods, and Zach matched it, hovering two steps behind her the entire way. Maddie accidentally caught him in the corner of her eye as they neared the edge of town, and even she was impressed at the way he had modified his gait and breathing patterns to imitate Logan. If Maddie hadn't known both of them better, she might have been convinced.

She prayed Logan's attempted kidnapper would be.

Maddie heard Tiffany's voice whispering through her comms unit, and she indicated that she had begun her surveillance of Casey and logged a position. Maddie's heart beat a little faster in her chest, but she forced herself to ignore it. She forced herself to focus on Tiffany's voice in her ear. Then she tripped and almost fell down the water retention ravine on the outskirts of town.

Zach caught Maddie's arm before she could fall, and set her firmly on her feet.

"You alright, Manchester?" He asked knowingly.

Maddie nodded.

"The best chance you have of both you and that boyfriend of yours making it out of this alive is to be as vigilant out here as possible," Zach warned. "You understand me?"

Maddie nodded, embarrassed.

"Anything else you've got floating around your head right now, you've got to just let it all go," Zach continued.

Maddie took a deep breath, and attempted to clear her mind. Although it didn't work entirely, she looped her arm through Zach's and guided him toward downtown at a march.

They entered the Presbyterian Church without making direct contact with anyone. The goal was to be noticed by every guest in the room - but never come within 25 feet of anyone else. That was the range at which Maddie was fairly sure no one would notice the pancake makeup smothering Zach's face.

They made a lap of the craft fair, hovering on the fringes of the room. When they paused in front of a small stage that took up one end of the function hall, Zach leaned incredibly close to Maddie's ear and whispered curiously, "Are we dating?"

Maddie was taken aback for a moment before she realized Zach was asking about her relationship status with Logan. He confidently wrapped an arm around Maddie's shoulders and said, "If we are, we need to sell it."

Maddie forced a girly laugh, as if whatever Zach had said to her was hysterical, and leaned into him, turning to face him and pulling his head down close to hers.

"Won't your girlfriend get upset?" She breathed back.

Zach leaned his forehead against Maddie's and rolled his eyes in a silent no. "It's just an op, Manchester," he whispered. "Don't get all in your head about it. Pretend I'm Logan. It's the little things that make it convincing."

Maddie laughed again, and pretended to kiss the tip of Zach's nose, then took his hand and proceeded to pull him into a corner, his face toward the wall.

"What can you see?" Zach whispered in her ear.

Maddie studied the room, her fingers tracing lines on Zach's muscular shoulders, just the way she'd touched Logan the night before, as she covertly scanned the room..

"Camera on the west wall, near the stairs" she muttered, brushing her lips along Zach's neck. "Casey's still with Tiffany, but she's just shopping. No sign of our would-be kidnapper yet."

Zach nodded. "You're doing great Manchester. Let's find the camera room. I think we've made our presence known, and can get a better view from a private spot."

"There's a third floor lighting space too," Maddie responded. "I think we can see the whole room from up there."

Zach raised his eyebrows jokingly and said "Do you want to go somewhere a little more private?"

Maddie took Zach's hand and dragged him toward the staircase on the opposite side of the gym, letting her face fall in full view of the camera while Zach ducked his head.

Maddie pushed open the doors to the stairs and ran up the two flights to the locked mechanical door. She slipped a bobby pin from her hair and fiddled the lock for about five seconds, then pushed the door open.

"Really high tech security around here," Zach joked.

"Perfect for planning an exfiltration," Maddie said seriously.

Maddie broke into a run and skirted the edge of the lighting space, searching for the master circuits. When she saw the tell-tale communications box, she skidded to a stop.

A soft curse fell from Maddie's lips as she realized that someone had beaten them to this location. Wire clips ran from the communications interface to a burner cell phone, likely transferring the video feed of the church to a remote location.

"I think I can trace it back," Maddie said, immediately pulling her own phone from her pocket and connecting it to the burner via Bluetooth.

"Damn if you aren't a full-fledged Gallagher Girl already, Manchester," Zach commented.

He was silent for a moment, before he asked calmly, "Remind me, where's Logan?"

If any other person had asked the question, Maddie would have immediately considered him a suspect. Instead, panic rose in her throat at Zach's words. The phone in her hand pinged as it located the device receiving the video stream. Maddie's heart stopped when she read the coordinates, coordinates she knew far too well. Coordinates where she'd been living for the past four months.

Maddie pushed the panic aside, and forced herself to think. Logan was in imminent danger. There was no time to panic. Panic wouldn't protect Logan. Right now, Maddie had to do what she'd been born to do. Maddie had to be a Gallagher Girl.

"Get Rachel Morgan on the phone, right now," Maddie ordered, and Zach immediately reached into his pocket for his encrypted phone. "Find Agent Cameron. Whoever or whatever is receiving this video is inside the Gallagher Academy."

Maddie clicked through another option on her phone, until she found the tracking app she had programmed for her Modern Spy Tools class, and connected it to the tracer she had planted in her necklace, knowing it was the last thing on the planet Logan would willingly part with. Logan's tracking device was no longer inside the Gallagher Academy. Instead it was moving, on foot, somewhere through the woods between the Gallagher Academy and Roseville.

"They have him." Maddie forced the words through her lips. They came out as a whisper, as though speaking the truth quietly would make it less true. But Zach heard them nonetheless, and his eyes widened slightly, as he continued speaking in hushed, hurried tones through his phone.

At the same moment, Tiffany's nervous voice crackled through Maddie's earpiece, spurring her into action.

"Guys, I lost her," Tiffany said. "I lost Casey. I followed her into the bathroom and I think she snuck out through a ceiling panel."

Maddie raced toward the railing, her eyes scanning through the crowds, until she spotted Casey on the other side of the function hall, moving rapidly toward the exit. Maddie didn't stop to think as she ran across the third-floor mechanical space to the place where the stage curtain was hung from the ceiling. She climbed onto the third-floor railing and leaned over until she could just barely reach the pulley cable that moved the curtain. Then she glanced down quickly, to make sure no one was occupying the stage below, and unhooked the pulley cable, yanking it toward her. The curtain wobbled noticeably as Maddie tested her weight on the cable. Finding it sturdy enough for the task at hand, she took a deep breath, wrapped the cable around her waist, and stepped off the railing, at the same moment she heard Zach shout her name from ten steps away.

Maddie swung across the hall, and down toward the floor, blowing out her breath as she went with the hope that, if she cracked a rib when she landed, at least she wouldn't puncture her lungs. There was no time for a punctured lung today, that was for sure. Maddie sailed through the air, but the majority of the hall's occupants missed her descent because their attention was occupied by the curtain crashing toward the ground. It was a good distraction, even if Maddie hadn't intended it that way.

As Maddie neared the ground, she freed herself from the rope and executed a perfect rolling landing. She crashed into a table, and an entire display of crocheted blankets went flying, but she was immediately on her feet and racing after Casey. When Casey saw Maddie, she began to run, but Maddie cut through an aisle of vendors, and drew even with Casey, her tiny body faster and more agile. She reached a hand out and flipped the closest display table over and into Casey's path, which forced her to slow her pace just enough for Maddie to tackle her and pin her to the ground in the hallway outside the function room.

Casey's body crashed into the floor, and Maddie fell on top of her, pinning her arms and rolling her over so their faces were inches apart.

"Where is your mother taking him?" Maddie demanded, as Casey struggled against her. "I know you've been helping her. I know you told her we'd be here tonight."

Zach suddenly came into view, his face red, Maddie could only assume from anger, as he raced out of the staircase and ran toward the place where Maddie had Casey pinned to the floor.

"Are you kidding me?" A look of genuine surprise, and indignation registered on Casey's face, as she realized what was happening. "I don't know how many times I can tell you this, but I'm not in contact with my mother and I'm not trying to kidnap Logan! Logan is my friend, and we've barely even spoken in weeks. I had no idea you would be here tonight. You can have your psycho friends tail me all you want, you can attack me, and interrogate me, but it still isn't going to change the fact that I'm not helping anyone kidnap Logan."

Maddie hesitated, her arms still pinning Casey's to the ground. Casey turned her eyes to look at Zach, and Zach studied her for a moment, considering.

"Let her go, Manchester," he nodded. "She's telling the truth."

"You don't know that," Maddie accused.

"I do," Zach said firmly. "You have to trust me. And we're wasting time."

Maddie turned back to Casey. "If you're not the mole, what about the postcard your mom sent you? And the girl you bullied into leaving Gallagher so there would be a spot for me?"

"I didn't bully anyone into leaving," Casey responded. "That's just a nasty rumor that Alice started. And I don't know what postcard you saw, but I told you before, I haven't heard from my mother since she disappeared fifteen years ago."

"Then why was she following us around Roseville?" Maddie demanded. "How did she know where to find Logan tonight?"

"Maddie, your sketch looks nothing like my mother. I still don't even know how you got that idea. And I told you before, I didn't know you would be here tonight."

Maddie's mind spun, as the truth started to take hold. Someone hadn't been in Roseville the day Logan was almost kidnapped. Someone had planted that postcard. Someone had bullied a girl into leaving the Gallagher Academy last semester to make a place for Maddie, and then spread rumors about Casey to cover it up. Someone had intercepted Maddie when she went looking for Professor Sutton, and just happened to identify the woman in Maddie's sketch. Someone had known Maddie would be here tonight, and that Logan wouldn't. Someone who knew the Gallagher Academy inside and out.

"Alice."

The word fell from Maddie's mouth before she even realized she had thought it.

Maddie released Casey and rose to her feet, immediately turning and running out of the hall. She could hear Zach following in close pursuit as she bolted into the woods. Maddie raced toward the signal, but it started to move faster. Her legs churned as quickly as she could make them go, but it wasn't enough. No matter how fast Maddie ran, she couldn't outrun a car.

Maddie slowed to a stop, panting. Zach skidded to a halt behind her.

Maddie's hands started to shake, and her vision blurred. This can't be happening, she thought. This can't be happening again. But it was. And now Maddie had to come up with a plan to rescue Logan.

Wordlessly, Maddie changed direction, and started back toward the church. Her legs found a new sense of purpose, and her body a new source of energy as she pushed herself on. She was going to find Logan, and she would rescue him, just like the last time. There was no other option.

Maddie backtracked to the corner of the church parking lot, and stopped at the first old, nondescript sedan she reached. She tried the door latch, which was, miraculously, open.

A strong hand gripped Maddie's shoulder, and she tried to neutralize her assailant, but Zach predicted her next move and trapped her against the partially open car door.

"Manchester," Zach said firmly. "Stop. Think this through. The cavalry is coming. All we have to do is go back to Gallagher and show them your tracker and . . ."

"I'm going after him," Maddie cut him off. "Now."

"Maddie, no," Zach ordered. "We're in enough trouble as it is. You don't know what's waiting out there, and you can't face it alone."

"I'm going," Maddie insisted. "And you know you would do the exact same thing, if it were Cammie. You were in my place not so long ago, Zach."

Zach blinked as Maddie's words met their mark, delivering a powerful blow.

"You're right," he said calmly. "I would. But you can't go alone, Manchester. You could be walking into a trap."

"Oh, I'm positive I'm walking into a trap," Maddie said with an unsettled laugh. She paused for a moment, calculating, before she held out her hand and said, "Give me your phone."

Zach hesitated.

"Now, Zach," Maddie ordered. "You have to trust me. We're wasting time."

Zach passed his encrypted cell to Maddie, and in less than 30 seconds, she had loaded Logan's tracking device onto it.

"So you'll know where to bring the cavalry," Maddie explained. She forced a reassuring smile. "It's going to be fine."

"Except for my court-martial, you mean," Zach commented.

"I'm pretty sure the CIA can't do that," Maddie responded with an eye roll. "It's hard to prosecute people who don't exist. But anyway, I don't think you'll be court-martialed after we save the president's son."

Zach took the phone, and stepped away from the vehicle. Maddie slid behind the wheel and placed her hands under the dashboard.

"You do know how to drive, right?" Zach asked, as the engine sprang to life at Maddie's instruction. Maddie reached for the stick shift to put the car in gear, and laughed internally. This poor vehicle owner was probably certain his manual transmission would prevent his car from being stolen, but he hadn't planned on a sixteen-year-old from Alaska, where there wasn't an automatic transmission for miles.

"Godspeed, Manchester," Zach said, smacking the side of the car as Maddie closed the door and began to move the car forward. "Be vigilant out there."

Chapter Text

Logan hadn't been able to sleep the night before, not with Maddie's small body pressed against his chest, resting in his bed. It was bliss honestly, holding her while she slept. Logan used the minutes to memorize everything about Maddie that he could: her smell, and feel of her skin, and the rhythm of her breathing. If he closed his eyes, he might miss something, and Logan was desperate to hold onto every possible second.

But the night was nowhere near long enough, and before Logan could bear it, streaks of gold were peeking through the window as the sun rose. Maddie rustled awake beside him, and Logan groaned inwardly. What he wouldn't give for just a few more minutes. And yet, Logan knew that no amount of time would ever be long enough.

Maddie rose, and walked over to the window. Logan followed and stood behind her, wrapping his arms around her small body and letting his chin rest gently atop her head.

"It's time," Maddie said quietly. "You know the plan. By the end of the day, hopefully, this will all be over."

"I know I asked you to do this for me, Mad Dog," Logan choked out. "But I think we should call it off."

Maddie shook her head firmly. "That's just your fear talking," she said. "The adults aren't taking this seriously enough. We have to do something."

She turned to face Logan, and pulled his face down to her level, catching his lower lip in hers and kissing him deeply. Logan wished he could make the moment last forever.

He wished it didn't feel like she was saying goodbye.

Maddie reached behind her neck and undid the clasp on the necklace Logan had given her so long ago. She stood on her tiptoes and fastened it around Logan's neck, tucking it into his shirt.

"There," she said, satisfied. "Now you'll have me with you the whole time."

Logan clung to the comfort of Maddie's necklace, which still hung next to his heart, as he shivered in what could only be a cellar of some kind 10 hours later.

If Logan hadn't been so worried about Maddie, he would really have no choice but to laugh. For what felt like Logan's whole life, he had been lectured about how he had to follow every single instruction, or something terrible would happen to him. Logan had broken every single rule for more than a decade, but the only times he'd ever been kidnapped were when he'd been doing exactly as he'd been told.

Logan had followed all of Maddie's instructions to the letter. He hadn't breathed a word of the plan to anyone. He hadn't talked to Casey in weeks. He had hidden in the "treehouse" and waited for news. Logan had thought of a lot of ways Maddie's operation could go wrong as he counted the minutes in silence. The one thing he hadn't expected was to be kidnapped from inside the Gallagher academy.

Logan had been minding his own business when the secret passage-way into the treehouse opened up and a trim but intimidating middle-aged woman climbed out.

"Hello, Logan," she'd said calmly. "It's nice to finally meet you."

Logan had known the woman the moment she stepped out of the tunnel. He'd seen her face before, even if only in pieces. Her long dark hair tossed over her shoulder, staring into a window in Roseville. The shape of her ear out of the corner of his eye as he stood in line at the soda shop. Her cutting, calculating, dark brown eyes as she peered through the lobby door of the movie theater.

Logan instinctively backed away from her, but the room had too many corners, and the woman had placed herself solidly between Logan and the exit.

"I'd say welcome to the Gallagher Academy," Logan joked. "But it seems like you already know your way around pretty well."

The woman chuckled, the way the villains in movies always do when they are certain no one has any chance of foiling their evil plan. Logan kept studying the woman's face, unable to shake the feeling that he knew her from somewhere.

Think, he chastised himself. Now is the time to be a Gallagher Girl, goddamnit.

"It's a shame you're missing the craft fair tonight," she'd said jokingly. "But I have some pretty exciting plans for us."

It was the shape of her nose, the slant of her cheekbones, the way the corners of her mouth tilted up into a sneer, that jogged Logan's memory. Like he'd been staring at them all semester. And once the thought crossed his mind, everything made perfect sense.

The resemblance was so much more vibrant in person than it had been in Maddie's sketch. And yet he couldn't believe they'd been so stupid.

"Yeah," Logan smiled back, his inner politician taking control. "It was pretty great of your daughter Alice to arrange all that, wasn't it?"

The woman looked a tiny bit taken aback, but she hid it with a scowl. Logan's back reached the farthest wall from the woman, and she took a step closer. Logan tried to casually slide his hand into his back pocket to reach for his panic button, but the look on the woman's face stopped him.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," she warned. "At least, not unless you want your pretty little girlfriend to be dead for real this time."

Logan's fingers stopped where they were, a few inches from his pocket. Maddie would tell him to ignore her. Maddie would tell him to press the button. Not to make it easy for himself to be kidnapped. But Logan had watched Maddie almost die before, and he couldn't shake the image of her seemingly lifeless body at the bottom of that ravine from his mind. Logan knew there was a really good chance the woman didn't even have Maddie, and all of this was an empty threat. But it wasn't a chance Logan was willing to take.

Logan nodded, then slowly moved his hand to his pocket and removed the panic button, holding it in front of him. He tossed it across the room to the woman, who caught it in her palm.

"It's Rosalie, right?" Logan said with a smile. "Rosalie Sinclair?" Logan watched the woman's jaw tense at his words, and he knew he was right. He bit back a smirk as he said good-naturedly, "I just figure if you're going to kidnap me, we should at least be on a first name basis."

The woman stared at Logan in silence, not quite sure what to do with him. That was okay, Logan thought. No one had ever really known what to do with him, and he could usually use it to his advantage.

"I just have to ask you one more thing before we leave, if that's okay," Logan started, but he didn't wait for an answer. "The day you followed us around Roseville, you were in town for the board meeting, weren't you?" he continued. "That's why no one took Maddie's sketch seriously, isn't it?"

The woman studied Logan for a moment, before she nodded slowly.

"You're smarter than people give you credit for," she said, in a way that didn't really sound like a compliment. "But now it's time to get out of here. And if you know what's good for your girlfriend, you'll cooperate."

"I hear you," Logan said, holding his palms up in a gesture of surrender. "Let's get this show on the road."

Logan had watched as the woman hung his panic button on a lamp 200 feet inside the tunnel entrance, and tossed a burner cell phone into the shadows. Logan had followed the woman through the tunnels, careful to accidentally touch every single surface he could, drag his feet as much as possible, "accidentally" walk through every cobweb he could find. The woman clearly knew the tunnels better than Logan, because it hadn't taken nearly as long as he'd expected for them to reach the exit. Even though every second felt like a year, maybe six minutes, maximum, had elapsed by the time Logan saw daylight glittering in the distance.

When they reached the tunnel's opening, Logan felt the woman nestle a small gun into the small of his back and firmly take hold of his shoulder with her other hand.

"Really?" Logan asked with fake outrage. "Man, I thought we were developing a rapport here."

The woman didn't say anything, but pushed Logan on until they stopped at a nondescript, dark green sedan, that had been carefully hidden in the woods. Logan honestly wasn't really sure how it had gotten there, since it didn't look like it could go very far off-road. The woman raised the trunk and looked at Logan.

Logan cringed away. "Please don't mess up my face," he begged. "It's really the only thing I've got going for me."

"You've been cooperative so far, I suppose," the woman shrugged. "So I guess napotine it is."

And then Logan had woken up who even knew how much longer later in a pitch-dark room. He pulled himself up to a sitting position, and tried to assess his surroundings. The floor and the walls were brick, and the air was damp. His hands were bound in front of him, with a knot he was pretty sure he could work free if given enough time.

There was no sign of Maddie.

Logan wasn't sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing, really. Maybe it meant she was safe, and rallying the troops back at Gallagher. Maybe it meant that she didn't even know he was gone yet.

But maybe it meant she was already dead.

Logan listened hard, but he didn't hear anything. Not voices. Not animals. Not traffic. Not a single thing that would give him an inkling as to where he'd ended up. Logan sighed, heavily, and leaned his back against the wall, while he settled in to work on the knot.

And that was when he heard it. The barely audible creeeaak of rusted hinges being pried open. A soft thud, as a small body dropped to the floor. Soft footfalls, moving slowly, cautiously, above his head.

Maddie.

Logan's heart raced as he thought her name. He rose to his feet, stood on tiptoes, and stretched tall, knocking his bound hands against the ceiling beams. Just twice. Just enough for Maddie to hear. Then he swayed, hard, and found his way to the floor again. Either Rosalie had hit him with an absurd amount of the drug, or they'd traveled way less far than Logan thought.

It didn't matter now, though. Maddie would free him, and together they would escape and go to the authorities.

At least that's what Logan thought would happen until he heard Rosalie's crisp, villain voice from the floor above. Followed by a click as she cocked her weapon in Maddie's direction.

"Madeline Manchester," she said happily, the sneer evident in her voice. "Well, well, I've been waiting a long time to meet you."

"I expected as much," Maddie responded, and Logan could almost hear her shrug through the floorboards. "I'm sure you didn't think I'd let you just keep him," she laughed. "Although I can't say I'm not tempted somedays."

Logan heard the woman cross the room toward Maddie.

"This way, then," Rosalie said calmly.

Logan heard Maddie's footfalls grow closer. A door opened. For a moment, there was a flash of light, and Logan could see Maddie's profile on a steep staircase across what was clearly a small cellar.

"Watch your step," Rosalie smirked, as Maddie tripped down a few stairs. "Make yourself comfortable. We're just waiting for one more guest. I'm sure it won't be long now."

The light disappeared. A lock clicked. Maddie stumbled across the room and settled on the floor next to Logan.

Chapter Text

Maddie flew down the highway going 20 miles over the speed limit in her "borrowed" sedan, and forced herself to think about all the positives in the situation.

Logan was gone, but she was pretty sure he wasn't dead.

He was sentimental enough not to take her necklace off unless it was physically removed from his body, so there was a good chance the location she was tracking was accurate. Far more accurate than wherever he had likely dumped his panic button.

And if all else failed, Zach and the cavalry wouldn't be far behind.

Maddie repeated these data points in her head like a mantra as she followed four car lengths behind an equally nondescript vehicle she was pretty sure was carrying Logan, using every counter-surveillance technique she knew.

They were heading south and west, into the mountains of Virginia. Maddie had been here before on vacation once, years ago, to hike a portion of the Appalachian trail with her father. She wasn't familiar with the area enough to have an advantage. But she knew enough to know the terrain changed into steep mountainous cliffs quickly, and there were plenty of places to hide.

It was a good choice, if you were looking to hide someone within three hours of the white house. And without some kind of tracking information, you would be very, very difficult to find.

Maddie quietly thanked herself for being paranoid. Then she chastised herself for not being paranoid enough.

The car pulled off onto an exit somewhere between Lexington and Roanoke, some 30 miles past the last sign for the Shenandoah National Park, and Maddie took the ramp going the opposite direction, turned around at the switchback, and followed. Maddie knew she would have to dramatically increase her following distance once the road grew mountainous, but with her GPS information, there would be no reason to keep such a close tail.

At least, that's what Maddie thought until she heard the helicopter.

As Maddie came around the bend in the road, she saw the car she'd been tailing pulled onto a lookout along the side of the road. A chopper whirred, and lifted off the ground a few hundred feet away.

Maddie smacked her hands against the steering wheel, hard, and muttered a curse under her breath. She slowed her own car, pulling it onto the shoulder.

"How does literally everyone have a goddamn helicopter!" she shouted to herself in exasperation.

But Maddie knew there wasn't more than a moment to spare for her frustrations. She stepped into the edge of the trees and watched the helicopter pull further away, attempting to calculate its flight path.

Maddie didn't have the benefit of a helicopter, so she did the next best thing she could think of. She pulled her phone from her pocket and sent an encrypted text message to Zach.

I'm watching a Gallagher Board member fly across the Shenandoah Valley in an unregistered helicopter. Tell me you have better news.

Zach's response was almost immediate.

We're in some pretty huge trouble, Manchester. If you don't find Logan and bring him back, I'm about to get thrown out of the CIA, you're about to be expelled, and we're both about to be charged as accessories to a kidnapping. Oh, and treason.

Maddie's blood ran cold, but she didn't let herself think about it. Instead she typed a hurried response.

I take it the President just found out. Guess I'll start hiking then. Maybe he can send a chopper.

Maddie's phone buzzed again, but she turned it to silent and slid it into her pocket. Logan was in danger, and she didn't have time to listen to the President's empty threats. At least, she hoped they were empty threats.

It was Maddie's job to protect Logan, and she was going to do just that, even if she had to do it all by herself.

The helicopter had disappeared from view, and Maddie's tracker showed that the location had stabilized. Maddie knew it would take her hours to catch up on foot, particularly given the harrowing terrain, and there was no time to waste. She examined the topography. She charted a course to Logan's location. And then she set off into the woods at a dead run, hoping she hadn't seriously lost stamina during the four months since she left Alaska.

At least it's warmer than Alaska, Maddie thought to herself as she ran. She wasn't able to run far before the terrain grew too steep, and she was forced to climb instead. If it hadn't been for the circumstances, she might have considered making her way up the mountain to be a really satisfying workout, but instead fear gripped her. Climbing this mountain was digging dangerously far into her energy reserves, and she wasn't sure she'd even have anything left to fight with once she reached Logan. With help significantly delayed, or possibly never coming, Maddie knew she might be entirely on her own. Again.

It was okay, she told herself. Maddie was used to being on her own. But she did desperately wish she'd taken her hatchet to the craft fair.

The climb took less time than Maddie expected, in the end. She did have to scale one sheer cliff face, but doing so had shaved nearly an hour and a half off her total hiking time, and that was worth the risk in her mind. Besides, if Maddie had one skill she excelled in besides hatchet-throwing, it was definitely cliff-scaling.

The signal from Logan's tracker grew closer and closer, and eventually, Maddie could see a small cabin nestled into the woods. It was clever, Maddie admitted. The heavy tree covering would make it impossible to find from the sky, and the location was so remote that no one would happen upon it by chance. There had to be a helicopter access point somewhere nearby, but Maddie suspected it was well hidden. Besides, you would have plenty of warning if someone were to show up uninvited by helicopter.

Maddie might have given plenty of warning already, and just not known it, she thought nervously. What were the chances a well-trained spy's safe house would be totally unprotected,

after all? Maddie had to admit that they weren't very good.

There was a very good chance Rosalie Sinclair already knew Maddie was here. There was an even better chance that Maddie's appearance was all part of her plan. Maddie honestly wasn't sure which thought scared her more.

Maddie glanced at her phone in a final, desperate hope that help was on the way. The only response was a not very reassuring message from Zach.

Do what you have to do. I won't let you be alone out there.

Maddie took a nervous breath. She trusted Zach, probably more than she should. If he said he'd find backup for her, he meant it. Right now, he was the only person who had almost as much to

lose as she did. Maddie felt terrible for dragging him into this mess in the first place. In one fell swoop, she had managed to get the President's son kidnapped, ruin the decorated career of a highly respected – some might even say legendary - government operative, and get herself charged with treason.

But Logan was in that cabin.

Maddie inched closer to the edge of the clearing, stepping over at least one laser tripwire as she neared the cabin. How many others had she already set off? She didn't even want to think about it at this point.

This was the place, that was for sure. Logan's dot had been stationary for a while, and though there was no sign of life, the property was far from abandoned. The clearing had been intentionally kept that way, creating a 200-foot open space between the edge of the trees and the cabin. A space that would be nearly impossible to cross without being spotted.

Maddie took a deep breath, and calmed her nerves. This was a suicide mission, and she knew it. If she was being honest with herself, she'd known it since the moment she'd hot-wired that car in the church parking lot. Maybe she'd even known it the minute she'd put the plan in motion.

Rosalie knew it too, Maddie was sure. Surely her life as she knew it would end the moment she was discovered. And when you kidnap the President's son, there's very little chance you won't eventually be discovered.

And just like that, Maddie realized how deeply she was in over her head. Because only one thing could motivate someone to knowingly implode their entire life the way Rosalie was surely imploding hers, and it wasn't money or power or even love. No, Maddie knew from that moment, that, without question, what Rosalie was truly after was vengeance.

Chapter Text

"Are you okay?" Logan whispered into the darkness.

Maddie didn't turn to face him, but she slowly nodded her head yes. Logan might not be a spy, but even he was pretty sure she was lying.

The darkness was thicker, somehow, with Maddie here. Logan had already resigned himself to his fate, but he was far less okay with it now that Maddie had joined him in this predicament.

"I did everything you told me to," Logan said, trying not to sound defensive. "This wasn't supposed to happen."

Maddie sighed, heavily. "I know you did. This is entirely my fault."

"Maddie," Logan started, forcing the words past the tightness in his throat. "Why are you here?" The words sounded like an accusation, but Logan couldn't stop it in time. He couldn't help but be a little angry that Maddie had walked into this cabin where they were both probably going to die. But being angry wasn't going to change anything now, so he adjusted his tone and continued. "And why are you alone?"

Maddie turned to Logan, her eyes cold and dark, and Logan could see the anger and fear boiling behind them. "Because," Maddie whispered. "I'm pretty sure this isn't about you."

"I'm the one who got kidnapped," Logan accused. But then he paused, and thought. And once he did, the reality became obvious.

"I'm the bait," he said quietly.

Maddie nodded.

And that was when Logan heard the door upstairs squeak open, and the heavy steps of a well-muscled adult man echo from above.

"We're both the bait," she whispered angrily, as though she somehow should have realized all of this sooner.

"Hello, Rosalie," Michael Manchester said calmly. "I hope I haven't kept you waiting."

Rosalie laughed, and the sound sent shivers down Logan's spine as she responded. "Only fifteen years."

Logan was very aware of the way Maddie had instantly come alive beside him, panic hovering behind her eyes as she processed what was happening above her.

"I'm sorry," Michael Manchester said sympathetically. "You know I really didn't fake my own death and move to Alaska just to inconvenience you."

Logan could hear him strolling casually around the cabin, assessing the situation.

"Kind of unfair to bring my daughter and the kid into it though, isn't it?" he posited. "Just not very sportsmanlike. Are you really going to kill all three of us? Because that's kind of a lot of holes to dig, and it's way more time consuming than you'd think."

Michael Manchester didn't wait for a response. Logan couldn't shake the thought that he sounded just like Maddie.

"Probably just Maddie and I, right? And you'll turn Logan over to get a nice cushy cell in a minimum-security prison? I mean, no one's going to miss two people who barely exist anyway."

Maddie had gotten to her feet and was quietly pacing the perimeter of the basement, though Logan wasn't sure what she was searching for. She apparently didn't find what she was looking for, and returned to Logan's side.

Rosalie laughed again. "It's so cute how you underestimate me," she retorted. "But I've had fifteen years to think about how you tore my family apart. Fifteen years my daughter didn't get to spend with her father. . ."

"See," Michael Manchester cut her off. "Maddie lost her mom too, so I think you're re-writing history just a little bit..."

Maddie dropped to the floor in front of Logan and used her teeth to grab the rope around his wrists. Working together, and with the right amount of force applied at the correct time, Logan was eventually able to slip one of his hands free.

"Take off your shirt," Maddie was next to Logan again, whispering into his ear. He didn't know what she was planning, but he did as he was told. He undid the buttons on his collared shirt, wiggled it over the ropes still piled on his left wrist, and passed it to Maddie.

"We're actually even, if you think about it," Logan heard Michael Manchester say through the floorboards.

Maddie sniffed the shirt, and nodded. Logan's first thought was that this really wasn't the time for her to appreciate how good he smelled, but then he remembered that starch could be flammable. Maddie walked to the far corner of the cellar, and jerked her head in a signal for Logan to follow.

"That wasn't the same thing, and you know it," Rosalie's voice echoed from upstairs. Her tone was escalating now, and even Logan knew they were almost out of time. "You knew exactly what you were doing."

Maddie's hands were still bound, but she fished them under her shirt anyway, and appeared to unwind something wrapped around her bra. When she pulled her arms back out, Logan saw a flash of silver, as she negotiated her flint necklace into position.

Logan's eyes grew huge as he realized what Maddie was about to do, but she held her fingers to her lips and motioned upward.

There was a small space above their heads between the floorboards and the wall. Just enough to funnel smoke up to the second floor.

If she didn't set herself or the whole cabin on fire in the process.

Logan shook his head "no" violently, but Maddie rolled her eyes, as if to say "what other option is there."

And unfortunately, Logan couldn't disagree. A long five seconds of silence had passed upstairs, and Logan knew they couldn't wait any longer. He held out his hands and used them to step Maddie onto his shoulders, where she sat precariously.

As Maddie adjusted herself on Logan's shoulders, he heard Michael Manchester let out a heavy sigh from upstairs.

"I didn't know Gregory Maxwell had any children when I killed him."

Logan and Maddie both froze at the words. Logan glanced up. Maddie's face was processing what she'd just heard. Her hands frozen on the flint necklace, her elbow pinning the shirt to the wall.

"Are you asking me to believe you wouldn't have done it if you had?" Rosalie responded.

Logan reached up and slipped the flint necklace from Maddie's frozen fingers. He positioned it in his hands, closed his eyes, said a prayer, and lit a spark.

Nothing happened.

"That's not what I said," Michael Manchester's voice slid through the boards above them, the weight of his words heavy in the air. "But I am sorry. For your daughter. I can't imagine she had an easy childhood growing up alone with you.

Maddie's hand dropped next to Logan's ear, and he placed the flint and striker back between her fingers. She deftly lit the spark, which landed on Logan's discarded shirt. There was a nanosecond, where it looked like nothing would happen, and then a small, flicker of flame began to burn.

Rosalie laughed, and Logan shivered again.

"Like hell you are," she spat. "Enough talking. I think it's time your daughter and her little friend joined us, don't you?"

Maddie balled the shirt up in her hands, and stuffed as much as she could into the space between the wall. Then she slid down from Logan's shoulders, dragged him across the room, and waited at the base of the stairs. The cellar was filling with smoke, and Maddie buried her nose in her sleeve. Logan quickly did the same.

Footsteps began to cross the floorboards above their head, and for a moment, it seemed their efforts had all been in vain. And then that tiny flicker of fire, that small flame of hope, changed direction, and the floor beams caught.

The smoke in the cellar became almost instantly heavier, but Maddie still held Logan's arm firm. Then Logan heard a gunshot and the sounds of a struggle, and Maddie yanked him up the stairs.

The smoke was heavier upstairs, and growing thicker by the moment, and Logan couldn't see either Michael Manchester or Rosalie Sinclair clearly through the haze as Maddie pushed him behind her and shuffled them to the still open door, and through the storm door.

Logan gasped in a breath of fresh air as Maddie slammed the stormer behind her as hard as she could, and banged her fist into the lower metal section three times in quick succession.

And then she dragged Logan behind her as they ran through the clearing and into the tree cover on the other side.

"Mad. . ." Logan tried to get her attention, but his lungs burned, and his legs felt like jelly. "Maddie, your dad. . ."

"Would prioritize your safety," Maddie cut him off. Logan caught a glance at Maddie's face, but there was nothing there to see. It was almost as if Maddie had turned off all of her emotions to push herself through this moment. And it was terrifying.

Maddie stopped 100 feet in from the tree line and crouched in the bush. Logan stayed perfectly still beside her as she watched the cabin with appraising and nervous eyes. But there was nothing to see, except the ever-increasing pillar of smoke, and the flames that were quickly devouring the wall adjacent to the hole they'd found.

Maddie's eyes lit up for a moment, and she turned to Logan and whispered, in a hushed but desperate tone, "Do you hear that?"

Logan listened. If he concentrated hard, he could make out a barely perceptible but rhythmic humming noise, almost like a dolphin flapping its fins against the ocean.

Logan nodded. "What is it?" he asked, confused.

Maddie turned her pained eyes back to the cabin before them, and if Logan hadn't been watching her carefully, he would have missed the word that fell from her lips, barely making a sound, as if saying it out loud might jinx it out of existence.

"Hope."

Chapter Text

Maddie tried to exude calm as she crouched in the brush beside Logan, but her mind was spinning at a million miles an hour and her heart was beating out of her chest as she watched the cabin burn.

This couldn't be happening, could it? Honestly, this entire day felt like an out-of-body experience. Just six hours before, Maddie had been walking to Roseville for a seemingly simple operation. Now she was three hours away in the Appalachian Mountains watching the small cabin burn, the curls of smoke mixing with the dusk and growing more difficult to see as the seconds passed.

The cabin her father was likely still inside.

Stop it, Maddie scolded herself. He got out. He had to have gotten out. She had deliberately lit the fire in the farthest corner from the exit. She'd deliberately slammed the stormer loudly enough that he would have heard it, and known not to go looking for them.

The roof caught, and Maddie unconsciously flinched away from it. She felt Logan wrap his strong arms around her shoulders and pull her in closer. A tear slid down Maddie's cheek as the adrenaline slowed and the reality of her choices caught up to her.

It had only been a few moments, three minutes at the most, since Maddie had lit the fire, but it felt like a year.

Maddie heard a crunch of the brush behind her and pulled Logan down further, whipping her head over her shoulder just in time to see a hatchet fly through the air and sink into the trunk of the tree beside them.

Maddie's hatchet.

As a running Tiffany came into view, Maddie leaped up from the ground and dislodged the hatchet from the tree. She swiftly sliced the ropes around her wrists, then reached down to sever Logan's remaining restraints as well. Maddie swiveled on her heel and turned to meet Tiffany's eyes.

"I've got him," Tiffany mouthed, answering Maddie's silent question.

"Nice throw," Maddie said. Tiffany nodded in response. Then Maddie turned, hatchet in tow, and sprinted back through the clearing to the cabin. She had hoped to spot her father and Rosalie along the way, but she hadn't, so she peered through the window she'd pried open earlier, the heat from the proximity of the fire scorching on her skin.

And that was when Maddie saw them, sprawled on the floor, unconscious. Or dead, a voice echoed in Maddie's head, but she silenced it. She took the handle of her hatchet to the window, turning her face away as the glass shattered. She ignored the sensation as flying bits of glass embedded themselves in her neck, her cheek, her shoulder.

Maddie climbed through the window, and rushed to her father's side. Michael Manchester was 225 pounds of dead weight muscle, and it took all of Maddie's strength to drag him across the floor. The fire blazed above her, and Maddie forced away the knowledge that the roof could collapse at any moment. She reached the window, gasping for air, and hoisted her father's shoulders through it, and into the waiting arms of Casey, who had appeared out of nowhere.

Maddie hesitated for a moment when she came face to face with Casey. An unspoken conversation passed between them. But Maddie had no other choice, so she pushed her father through the window, and Casey pulled him clear of the opening and into the fresh air.

Maddie's hands were covered in blood, and she wasn't sure where it had come from. But there wasn't time to think about that. She pulled herself onto the window, and looped one leg through to the outside. But then she hesitated.

"Maddie!" Casey shouted. "The roof! We have to go now."

But Maddie's conscience tugged her back through the window and into the flaming structure.

Over her shoulder, Maddie could hear Casey shouting, "Maddie, no!" but she ignored it.

Her lungs burned, as she caught hold of Rosalie's arm and heaved her toward the window with everything she had left. Sweat ran down Maddie's face. Smoke stung her eyes. She could barely even see, only feel.

Maddie pushed Rosalie's limp body up toward the opening, but her mind was growing fuzzy, her head was spinning. She felt Rosalie's arms pass through the window, and gave one final shove, but the force of her effort knocked her backward onto the floor itself.

The last thing Maddie remembered was hearing the cracking noise her head made when it hit the ground. And everything went black.

Chapter Text

The beating, rhythmic, noise was so loud, Maddie couldn't be sure whether it was real or just in her head. She tried to open her eyes, but everything was still black. She blinked, harder, but the darkness didn't budge.

Maddie could smell the smoke now. It was all she could smell, really, and so thick that the inside of her mouth tasted like ash. Everything that had happened over the last few hours came rushing back, flooding her brain.

It was only then that Maddie realized she couldn't breathe. She gasped for air, but could only fill her lungs with more smoke. She coughed, violently, and felt strong hands grip her shoulders, and lift her torso up to a seated position.

"Casey!" Logan's muffled voice called. "Can we get Mad Dog some more air please?"

Someone pressed an oxygen mask over Maddie's face, and she breathed deeply. Her lungs filled with pure, uncontaminated air for the first time in what felt like years, and she immediately felt slightly less fatigued.

The hands on Maddie's shoulders pulled away for a moment and she almost fell, unprepared for how weak she felt without them.

"Woops, sorry Mad," Logan said, and the hands held her firm again.

Maddie tried to open her eyes again, and when she did, it was still nearly pitch black. Maddie could see her hands in front of her, but barely. The cacophony in her head was, at least partly attributable to a helicopter. Maddie couldn't see it in the dark, but she could hear the unmistakable purr of a modified engine, feel the spiralized wind whipping against her skin.

Maddie's head pounded, and her throat burned. Her eyes scanned her surroundings. There was no sign of the cabin, but Maddie couldn't imagine she'd relocated on her own. Maddie couldn't make out anything or anyone in the dark, and her heart began to pound as her mind processed what had happened.

Maddie reached for her face and tried to remove her oxygen mask, alarmed at the way her arms felt like rubber. Someone had wrapped both of her hands in several inches of gauze, and she could barely even get her fingers into the elastic strap.

"I've got that, Maddie," Logan said gently, as his fingers deftly reached up from Maddie's shoulders and removed her mask. Maddie tried to turn her head to assess the situation further, but a stabbing pain shot through her neck, and for a moment the pain was so bad she thought she would vomit.

"Easy there," Logan said softly, his hands moving in gentle circles on Maddie's shoulders. "You hit your head pretty hard. You definitely have a concussion."

Maddie groaned. At least this time she wouldn't have to hike through an Alaskan blizzard for two days.

They sat in silence for a few moments, and Maddie couldn't help but feel safer with her upper body leaning heavily into Logan's strong chest behind her. Maddie was too afraid to say anything. If she didn't ask the questions, maybe she'd never have to hear the answers. Maybe she could forget what she had just done. Maybe she could forget what she had just heard.

But Maddie knew better than most people that hiding from the truth wouldn't make it any different. So Maddie steeled herself and forced the words past her lips.

"My dad?" she asked quietly.

"He's going to be okay, Mad Dog," Logan said gently. "He breathed in a lot of smoke, and he has some pretty significant burns, but he's safe." Logan gently kissed the top of Maddie's hair. "You saved him. You saved both of us."

"And Rosalie?"

Logan sighed. "She's gone – not dead gone – just gone gone. She must have come to and slipped off into the bush while we were trying to take care of you and your Dad."

Maddie must have made a dissatisfied noise, because Logan said, "Don't worry, Mad Dog, they'll get her. She couldn't have gotten very far in this terrain, and this light, given the amount of smoke she inhaled."

A twig snapped to her left, and Maddie turned her eyes this time, rather than her head. Casey settled onto a fallen log near Maddie's side, and watched Maddie and Logan in silence. Gauze and medical tape covered a patch on her forearm, and soot streaked her face.

"You guys came for us," Maddie said quietly, holding Casey's gaze. "Thank you."

"Of course we did," Casey shrugged. "You're a Gallagher Girl, after all. It was Tiffany's idea, actually. She pretty much forced Goode to tell us where you were. Liv stole the chopper though."

Tiffany stepped gracefully over the log and sat down next to Casey. "Oh please," she rolled her eyes. "He basically handed it over the minute he realized how pissed we all were about Alice betraying us."

"Well, you're looking a lot better," Tiffany said, her eyes evaluating Maddie's condition. Then, turning to Casey, she added, "time to load them up and get off this mountain?"

"I'm in favor," Casey nodded. "Rosalie might not be coming back, but there are still way too many bears out here for my taste."

"Ready, Mad?" Logan asked. Maddie nodded, and he deftly lifted her into his arms and carried her toward the waiting helicopter.

Logan nestled Maddie into the corner of the chopper for support, but kept his arms wrapped tightly around her nonetheless. Maddie's father laid sprawled across the other bench, wrapped in what looked like a fire blanket, but he pushed himself upright when he saw her.

"Mad Dog," he said hoarsely. "Thank god you're okay." Maddie wasn't sure she'd ever seen her father look as vulnerable as he did when he reached his hand out to span the distance between them.

Tiffany and Casey climbed into the helicopter and sealed the door behind them. Maddie saw the faint outline of Olivia's profile sitting in the pilot's seat. She turned, counted the number of heads, and said "looks like we're all accounted for. Guess it's time to get this show on the road."

"Let's blow this popsicle stand, Liv," Tiffany said, climbing into the co-pilot's seat. "Next stop, Langley." Tiffany rustled around the cockpit section of the helicopter, searching for something. She lobbed what looked like a satellite phone toward Logan, who snatched it from the air just in time to keep it from smacking Maddie in the face.

"First Son," Tiffany ordered. "Now's the time to call your father and convince him not to have your girlfriend charged with treason."

"If you could mention the three of us too, that would probably also be good," Casey chimed in. "We did kind of steal a stealth chopper and break about 30 air traffic control laws to rescue you."

"And probably Goode too," Olivia chimed in. "That man annoys me to no end, but we wouldn't have made it here if he hadn't distracted the administrators long enough for us to steal this sweet ride, and I bet he's in some pretty serious trouble right now."

"I'm pretty confident I can handle that, Ladies," Logan said, rolling his eyes. His inner politician could always be counted-on in a pinch.

Maddie felt the helicopter slowly begin to lift off into the sky. She buried her face in Logan's chest and, finding that she couldn't hold her eyes open any longer, allowed the darkness to take hold.

Chapter Text

"Gilly 14, you are cleared for landing in bay six" a voice crackled over the in-flight radio.

The Langley field office's helicopter bay was far less glamorous than Maddie had anticipated. Maddie knew she had only been to one other CIA facility, but compared to the ultra-hidden, new-age pentagon city office, she wasn't expecting cracking concrete and tinted, bulletproof windows. They at least ought to be explosive proof, in Maddie's opinion.

The helicopter settled to the ground, and Olivia cut the engines. Tiffany unlocked the hatch, and Maddie's classmates exited the helicopter one by one.

Logan was the last to climb out, hesitant to let go of Maddie. "It's okay," Maddie said quietly. "But do you think you could give us a minute?"

Logan's eyes went from Maddie to her father and back. Then he nodded once and climbed out of the chopper, leaving the two of them alone with their secrets.

Maddie's father looked at her sadly, like he didn't know where to begin.

"I've missed you so much this spring," he said, finally. "Obviously this isn't how I wanted it to happen, but I'm so happy to see you."

Maddie nodded, forcing back the tears that we're pooling in her eyes.

"I've missed you too," she choked out. "But we need to talk."

"I know." Michael Manchester sighed heavily, and stared at Maddie until she met his eyes.

"Mad Dog," he said carefully. "What I'm about to share with you is one of the greatest regrets of my life. But I think you have to know. And I think you have to hear it from me."

Maddie nodded, waiting.

"Your mom was only 22 when we first started dating. She'd just graduated from Gallagher a few years before, and she was pretty close friends with another young agent I'd been mentoring."

"Abigail Cameron," Maddie chimed in.

"Yes," Michael Manchester nodded, and continued. "She was eight years younger, but she was so determined in the way she pursued a relationship with me, that eventually I just gave in. And I'm glad I did, for the short time that it lasted, your mother and I were amazing together."

"Your mom didn't want to stop working when you were born, and I understood that. She was just getting started on her career, and I knew she would never be satisfied if I asked her to give it up. She was just so good at what she did. And that's how she happened to be on the president's detail the night someone tried to kill him."

Maddie's dad ran a hand through his hair nervously before he continued.

"There had been threats circling for a while, but there was nothing concrete that we could work with. Everyone was on high alert that night, and that's why they were ultimately successful in foiling the assassination attempt. But your mom caught a bullet that night, and she died in surgery."

"She was protecting Agent Cameron," Maddie filled in.

Michel Manchester nodded, and smiled sadly. "That's exactly the kind of person she was."

"You know that in our line of work, tomorrow is never a guarantee, but I didn't expect to be 32 and alone, raising an infant daughter by myself," Maddie's dad continued. "I was devastated to lose your mom. It didn't take me long to figure out who was behind the assassination attempt, and being younger and stupider and drowning in grief, I vowed to get revenge. So I did."

Maddie's father looked at her then. "And, if I could go back now, I'm not even sure I would make a different decision. But I have been ashamed of what I did for the last fifteen years."

"Before tonight, the only person who ever knew was Abby," Michael Manchester admitted. "At least, I think she did. She watched you while I disappeared for a few days. I didn't tell her where I was going, and she didn't ask. But I think she knew anyway."

"I didn't know Rosalie and the man I killed were connected for a long, long time," Maddie's father continued. "But I saw her once, when you and I were working the campaign circuit. You must have been about eight. Rosalie was working private security for the Winters-McHenry campaign back then, and her daughter was about the same age as you. I found Alice wandering around the grounds, unsupervised, so I was trying to find out where she belonged. She introduced herself to me as 'Alice Maxwell,' and the resemblance was so unsettling, I couldn't sleep for weeks. When I returned her to Rosalie, I recognized her from my reconnaissance mission years earlier. I introduced myself to Rosalie, and she looked at me with an expression I'll never forget and said, 'Oh, don't think I don't know exactly who you are.'"

"When the Circle of Cavan fell, I learned that Maxwell Edwards, the cousin of the man I killed, was a descendant of the original leaders, and had been feeding our information to the Circle for a long time, even visiting the Gallagher Academy and subtly recruiting for the Circle while on agency business."

"We moved to Alaska not long after that, and, like everyone else, she must have assumed we were both dead," Maddie's dad said.

"Until I rescued Logan," Maddie said softly.

Michael Manchester nodded. "Until you rescued Logan," he repeated.

"I think I'm pretty clear on what happened after that," Maddie said. "The best way to get to you was through me, and the best way to get to me was through Logan."

Michael Manchester nodded, silently.

"I played right into it," Maddie admitted.

"So did I," her father responded. He moved across the cabin, and gathered Maddie into his arms. Michael Manchester had never been an emotional man, but he held Maddie tightly, and when he pulled away, Maddie could see a tear in the corner of his eye.

"Mad Dog," he said, stroking her hair. "I just need you to know that I am so deeply proud of you. You're the best thing I've ever done with my life, and I know I don't always do a good job of showing it, but I love you."

"I love you too, Dad," Maddie responded. Silence fell over the two of them, but Maddie had never really been allowed to ask about her mother, and she wanted to know more.

"Can I just ask one more question?" Maddie asked, and her father nodded, so she continued. "Where did you and Mom first meet?"

Michael Manchester laughed. Then he winked at Maddie and said, "Buenos Aires."

"Of course," she said, rolling her eyes. It was fine. Her father could keep his secrets.

Except for one.

"Mad," he said quietly. "We're going to get out of this helicopter, and we're going to go to separate rooms and be thoroughly debriefed about everything that happened." He swallowed hard before continuing.

"I'm going to tell them the whole truth, Maddie," he said, meeting her eyes. "I don't know what's going to happen. But I know that it's time for me to face what I did."

Maddie nodded silently.

"I love you so much, Maddie," he said gently. "Everything I've done in the last sixteen years, right or wrong, I did out of love for you. I hope that you'll forgive me for all the mistakes I made."

Maddie could feel the tears falling down her cheeks as she met her father's eyes.

"You know what they say," he said firmly, waiting for Maddie's answer.

"And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free."

"That's right," Michael Manchester nodded and reached for the helicopter door. "The truth shall set you free."

Chapter Text

Logan tried to shake off the sting of his father's angry and disapproving words as he watched Maddie and Michael Manchester talking through the glass of the empty helicopter.

It was hard to imagine having a father who would show up to an obvious trap with no defenses just to rescue you. A father who'd been ready to trade his life for yours just a few hours earlier.

Logan wondered, if his father had been trapped in that burning cabin, whether he would have even gone back for him the way Maddie had.

"They're really a good team, aren't they?" Olivia commented, placing a hand on Logan's shoulder.

Logan nodded, not really sure what to say. "Thanks for coming for us."

"Don't even think about it, you're one of us now," Olivia shrugged. She took a few steps away from Logan, following the others, then turned back. "Also, that - what the two of them have - that's not normal. Don't compare yourself to that."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Logan responded.

"I think you do," Olivia challenged. "I talk about my mom a lot, but the truth is, I mostly do it because I want to feel closer to her than I actually am."

"Spoken like the child of a psychiatrist," Logan commented.

"Spoken like the child of a politician," Olivia accused. "But for what it's worth, my mom and I fight so much we were both relieved when it was time for me to go away to boarding school."

"I understand that," Logan admitted.

"I thought you would," Olivia responded. "Are you going to wait for them?"

"Yeah," Logan answered.

"Okay." Olivia said, turning back toward the path their classmates had taken. "I'll see you on the other side of the debrief."

"Godspeed," Logan teased. Olivia laughed in response. And then she was gone, leaving Logan alone with his thoughts, watching Maddie and her father locked in a deep embrace through the helicopter windows.

Logan wasn't sure there was anything lonelier than not having anyone to hug after a near death experience. If there was, he hadn't experienced it yet.

Logan's father had been livid when Logan had called him from the chopper. Logan had remained calm, because the conversation was exactly what he'd expected. It was the same conversation they'd had over and over and over again. It was Logan's fault he'd gotten kidnapped. Why in hell could he not just do what he was told? Why did he have to insist on dragging good people down with him? How could he possibly manage to get in trouble at an all-girls spy school?

And so Logan admitted guilt, even though he wasn't guilty. He asked forgiveness, even though he wasn't sorry. He begged for his father not to hold anyone else accountable for his mistakes. His father had been mostly lenient.

Except on one point. The president had made it very clear that he hadn't yet decided whether Logan would be returning to the Gallagher Academy. The president didn't know how to keep Logan in line. But he was very good at finding the one thing Logan wanted most and taking it away as punishment. And there was a very good chance that would mean being separated from Maddie indefinitely, when he'd only just gotten her back.

But there was no time to think about that now. Maddie was opening the cockpit door, and the look on her face was that of someone trying to force back a mountain of pain. Maddie was strong, but Logan knew that there was only so much even she could take.

Michael Manchester climbed out behind her, stone-faced as always. They walked over to Logan, and Maddie's father clapped him on the shoulder, locking eyes for a moment too long.

"I've always liked you, kid," he said fondly. "Take care of each other now, you hear me?"

Logan nodded, silently, and then Mr. Manchester was gone, through the double doors, leaving Logan and Maddie alone in the helicopter bay.

"Why did that sound like he was saying goodbye?" Logan asked, turning to Maddie. With her father out of sight, a tear made its way free from Maddie's eye, and Logan immediately gathered her into his arms. Her small body shook with sobs, and Logan wasn't sure whether it was the adrenaline rush of the day finally settling in, or something Maddie's father had said, or both, but he held Maddie as tightly to his chest as he could and gently stroked the top of her head. When Maddie's breathing began to slow, Logan kissed the top of her head, and turned her face up to meet his.

"Mad," he said gently. "Tell me what happened."

Maddie blinked back more tears, and swallowed hard, and Logan could tell she was struggling to compose herself.

"Everything we heard in the cabin," Maddie said quietly. "It's true, Logan. It's all true."

Logan nodded silently. He'd had a few hours now to process what he'd heard, and he couldn't really fault Mr. Manchester for his actions. When he thought Stefan had killed Maddie, he'd wanted to do the exact same thing.

"He's going to tell them everything," Maddie continued. "And I'll probably never see him again."

Logan thought about the stories he'd heard, when no one thought he was listening, of the underground prisons where spies and traitors were held, long white hallways of solitary confinement where people were locked up until they disappeared. He shuddered at the thought. And he swore he would do everything he could to prevent that from happening, even if it meant never seeing Maddie again.

"Mad," he said quietly. "I'm going to do everything in my power to make sure that doesn't happen."

Maddie nodded, like she believed him. Like she trusted him. And Logan felt a warm and fuzzy feeling deep inside his chest. Then she took his hand, and they walked to the double doors.

"From the frying pan into the fire," Maddie said calmly.

Logan nodded. He kissed her deeply, just in case this might be the last time. And then he opened the door, and allowed her to walk away from him.

"See you on the other side, Manchester."

Chapter Text

Dear Dad,

Finals are coming up next week, and the ones I know anything about already seem harder than I expected. I study all the time, and I still don't think it's enough. And then there's Coveops, which you can't really study for at all. The upperclassmen say that the professors just snatch you out of bed in the middle of the night, and run you through a very persuasive simulation. Of course, I've begun making tactical choices about what I wear to bed.

The nightmares have been better since the Cabin. I only sleepwalk a few nights a week now. It's dramatically helping my studies not to sleep on the floor every night. Logan says he misses me though. That's a weird thing to tell your father, but I promised I'd be honest with you from here out. I was happy to hear that Rosalie has been located and detained. It sounds like Alice has gone to ground. I do hope that she'll resurface. It's very sad to think of her being out on the run, alone, at sixteen. I'm sure that if she returned, amends could be made in some way. I've certainly forgiven her, and most of the school is fortunately ignorant about the details of the situation.

I miss you. It feels kind of good to finally admit it. But I'm looking forward to being reunited soon.

Love,

Maddie

Maddie finished the letter and pulled out her cipher to check the coding. Her ability to write coded letters on the fly had dramatically improved, but she still liked to double-check them before sending them out into the void. And unlike the many Evapopaper letters Maddie had destroyed instead of sending this semester, this letter, written on a thin piece of actual parchment (far more flammable than standard paper) was one she actually intended to mail.

The last few weeks had been a whirlwind, and if Maddie was honest with herself, she was still processing.

After being thoroughly debriefed, Maddie had returned to the Gallagher Academy to prepare for her final exams. And Logan, despite his father's threats to the contrary, had joined her. Maddie might have made a very persuasive speech to the President about how, even though Logan had been kidnapped twice on her watch, he had never intentionally tried to ditch her. And so Logan had returned to Roseville, his own team of secret service agents in tow.

After Alice's untimely departure, Casey had moved back into Maddie's suite. Apologies and rom-coms were shared, and Maddie was finally learning what it meant to have girlfriends. For as long as she could remember, she'd only ever had her father, and then Logan.

Maddie used a small sponge to wet the edge of the envelope (agents never willingly leave their DNA on anything), and carefully applied the stamp. It felt good to be writing her father an honest letter and actually sending it for once.

Michael Manchester had been transferred to a secure facility while his statements about Logan's kidnapping and the death of Gregory Maxwell were investigated. As the only adult present at the scene of the kidnapping, a thorough inquiry had been launched into Maddie's father's actions. Maddie had been routinely corresponding with both her father and his attorney, and she hoped that Rosalie's capture meant her father would be released imminently.

The charges against both Maddie and Zach had been dropped immediately after Logan's return. Maddie had hoped to speak with, apologize to, and thank Zach, but when she attempted to contact him, she learned that both he and Cammie had moved to Chicago. Zach's message assured the move had nothing to do with Maddie, but she still felt guilty.

Correlation is not causation, Zach's message had read. It was an honor serving with you, Manchester.

You were a worthy and loyal partner, Maddie had said. I'm very sorry that I got you charged with treason.

Zach had sent her back a laughing emoji, and the message Just another day at the Gallagher Academy.

Maddie walked slowly down the hallway toward the outgoing mailbox, where her letter would be reviewed by high-tech computers to ensure that it didn't contain any classified information. She slid the envelope into the box, and heard the whir of the processing machinery coming to life inside the wall.

Maddie turned back toward her room, and found herself face to face with Logan, who was standing in the hallway watching her.

"Hey Mad," he said carefully. "I'm probably not supposed to tell you this, but I just came from the faculty hall, where I live, of course, and there's quite a lot of activity going on down there."

Maddie smiled. "Oh there is?" she asked knowingly. "Should we go investigate?"

Logan glanced nervously around the room, and leaned in to whisper "I'm supposed to tell you yes, but I'd much rather you spent the night with me instead of beating up teachers and knocking down walls and whatnot."

Maddie laughed. "Wow, Logan," she chided. "Don't give up your day job to pursue an acting career, that's for sure."

Logan cradled Maddie's cheeks in his hands, and kissed her gently. "Find me after?" he asked.

"Of course I will," Maddie smiled.

"Okay, then," Logan said happily. And before Maddie knew what had happened, Logan had twisted her into a Hindenago maneuver and placed a blindfold over her eyes.

"Sorry, Mad Dog," he whispered. "This time you get to be the one who plays the kidnapping victim."

Maddie laughed. "I take it back, your acting is pretty solid after all."

"Hey, I have picked up a thing or two from going to spy school," Logan said, indignantly.

"See you around 3 am?" Maddie asked. Her covert operations exam was going to be a lot easier than she'd expected.

"Of course," Logan said happily. "It's a date."