Ginger's Spy School Oneshots

there's just smoke in my eyes

Author's Note: This scene in SSPX bothered me in ways you can't fathom. Zoe was painfully OOC. Maybe she is here, too, but at least this way is more in keeping with what already got established, so *shrugs*.

Also written with the idea that Ben and Erica didn't tell anyone they were dating because that also made me mad.

Title from John Hughes Movie by Maisie Peters.

~ * ~

It was morning, by the barest technicality. Zoe knew she was doing a horrible job and pretending she was happy, but she was trying really hard to act like she was, and Ben seemed to humor her and say down on the log next to her.

The sunlight was peeking over the horizon, the dawn painting the sky above the trees glorious shades of orange and pink.

But Zoe found herself unable to fully appreciate the view. She had too many thoughts and questions to do something like that.

"You're dating Erica, aren't you?" Zoe asked after a couple minutes. No one had said anything about a change in their relationship. Heck, knowing Erica, they probably hadn't said anything to anyone. But she'd noticed some sort of shift over the past couple days.

Ben gave a start. It didn't seem like the question he was expecting, but it was one that she had to ask. "How did you know?" he said.

Zoe smiled, or tried to at least, and said, "I'm a spy, Ben. It's my job to know things." Then she gave up any pretense of happiness and asked, "Since when?"

Ben hesitated, but said, "Since just after the Panama Canal."

And Zoe couldn't help but feel incredibly silly. It had been going on for weeks. Weeks. And somehow she'd managed to miss the shift. And she'd spent those weeks thinking that maybe if she just held out a little longer, waiting patiently like it always had, she'd get her shot.

But now Schrodinger had opened the box. And the cat was dead.

And Zoe wanted to cry.

But she didn't say anything, so Ben kept talking, trying desperately to fill the silence that had suddenly become incredibly awkward, "It just felt right, you know? For both of us."

Zoe nodded solemnly, still staring out into the distance. There was another long moment of awkward silence but there was another question on her heart, and she desperately needed the answer. She took a steadying breath and whispered, "Did we ever have a chance?"

Ben hesitated, but didn't dance around the truth. "I don't think so," he said, "not in any real sense, anyway."

And that was the heart of it, wasn't it? She was just a middle school girl who'd inadvertently developed a crush on her best friend even though she knew he had a crush on another girl. Even for that brief moment in Mexico when it seemed like it might be her, she knew somewhere deep within herself that all her silly little daydreams weren't going to be real.

They'd never had a chance.

She didn't blame Ben. Hell, she didn't even blame Erica. They seemed happy together, and it was a long time coming. Zoe wasn't the center of the universe, even though it would have been nice if she could catch a break in the romance department.

And now it was time for her to get over herself. To be grateful they were still friends, despite all this nonsense. To focus on the actual problem of conspiracy theorists and assassins and finding Murray.

But that didn't mean that her heart wasn't breaking.