Camille eased open the door to the softly lit room, taking a moment to listen to the reassuring tones of the heart monitor. Kirsten glanced up and gave her and Linus a small smile as they tiptoed into Cameron’s room.
“How’s he doing?” Linus asked, drawing their combined attention to Cameron’s sleeping form.
“He’s fine,” Kirsten said, her smile relieved. “But the doctors want to keep him here for another day or so.” She turned her face back to Camille, one eyebrow raised in an unimpressed arch. “Apparently he didn’t exactly sign outa here with their blessings. They thought he should have hung around for a bit longer because they’re generally a lot more cautious with people on blood thinners who get knocked in the head that hard.”
Camille let out a startled laugh, shaking her head in disbelief. “Yeah, well. I think we’re all learning where Cameron’s self-preservation scale lies. And it’s not a pleasing picture,” she muttered.
Linus nodded decisively. “When he wakes up, I’m going to kill him,” he announced.
Camille, however, had eyes only for her roommate. Her supposedly emotion-less roommate, who still bore the signs of having sobbed hysterically on Cameron’s chest not too long ago.
“The real question is – how are you doing?” she asked Kirsten, eying her critically.
Kirsten tried to deflect. “Oh, you know me.”
“I thought I did. That’s why I’m asking,” Camille pressed. Over a year of living with her, and that had been the first real emotion she’d ever seen in Kirsten. And she’d seen enough residual things from stitches by then to know the difference.
“I think I was just a little… overwhelmed,” Kirsten hedged, and Camille felt her eyebrow raise slightly.
“Well, that’s understandable,” Linus said. “Except we’re talking about you, here.”
Camille watched Kirsten’s face pucker in confusion and automatically tensed to go and offer comfort if the blonde needed it. But before Kirsten could say whatever she was about to, another voice entered the mix, and Camille’s trajectory changed at once.
“Keep it down. ‘m trying to rest in peace.” He even laughed at little at his own dumb joke, the absolute –
She couldn’t stop himself from reaching for him, being very careful of the machines attached to him. His hands were freezing, but he squeezed hers back, and relief and affection welled up like a tidal wave within her. “Hey. How are you doing, tough guy?”
“Hundred percent,” he said with a little smile, and Camille shook her head at him.
“Liar,” she accused. And then, because the sight of him dead was still too close behind her eyes for comfort, she added, “We’re going to talk about that – and a lot of things – when you’re outa here. Fisher’s in on it too.”
Cameron’s face pulled into a little frown, but Camille was having none of it. She didn’t care what it took to keep him alive and not stupid in the future; she’d do it and then some. To hell with whatever force of the universe thought that it was taking anything from her ever again now that she had things this precious.
“How’s Fisher?” Cameron asked, conveniently changing the subject as he let himself worry for his friend again.
“He’s out of danger; he’s going to be fine.” She smiled warmly at him, and gently let go of his hand, half of her wondering how much of the conversation she’d threatened Cameron with she had to have before he could run away.
But this time Kirsten interrupted. “Cameron, do you remember anything from the stitch?”
“I had a dream that you were, um, an angel and I was a…hero,” he replied, smile warm but flaggin, voice slurring with exhaustion. “What did you see when you were in my head?”
Kirsten gave Camille a pleading look that the brunette understood at once, and she allowed herself to retreat for the time being, dragging a protesting Linus out with her. When she was sure enough time had passed, she snuck back into the room and found Kirsten sitting in the dark.
“Did you tell him?” Camille whispered, thinking of the something that was close to awe in Kirsten’s voice when she’d said I’m everywhere and not needing much else to put two and two together with Cameron’s obvious heart eyes.
Kirsten gave her a calculating look, but then shrugged and let Camille in. “Nah. He passed out before I could.” She worried at her bottom lip and – oh. Worry. She had that, now.
“He’s going to be just fine,” Camille assured her, walking over so she could squeeze Kirsten’s shoulder. “But he can’t just… bounce back from that. He’s going to take some time. And we’re all going to be there to help.”
“Absolutely,” Kirsten agreed, firm steel in her voice.
Camille knew she’d meant it, at the time, so she couldn’t really begrudge Kirsten – newly emotional Kirsten, at that – for breaking her word the very next day.
Linus reported that Cameron was once again sort-of awake and doing fine when he walked back into Fisher’s room with Kirsten the next morning after Fisher asked to speak to her. And Kirsten was barely past passing on Cameron’s thanks for saving his life when Fisher dropped the Ed Clark/Turner bombshell on Kirsten. And Kirsten… hightailed the hell out of there, without so much as a backwards glance.
Linus and Camille, utterly blindsided and baffled, went to call Maggie and check if Kirsten was with Cameron respectively. Cameron’s room was empty save for him, however, and her lone presence prompted him to ask her for answers. Unwisely, Camille relayed the truth.
“Oh, hell no,” she added as soon as her story was done, surging forward to lay both her hands on Cameron’s shoulders to stop him from trying to get up. “Every world of no.”
“Camille – ” he huffed at her, and she slapped his hands away from where they were trying to take the pulse ox off his finger.
“I’m not letting you be an idiot. Again,” she snapped at him.
“You’re being ridiculous,” he snapped back, and she hoped the look she gave him was the reason he slumped back onto the pillows.
“I’m being -? Oh, no, Goodkin. Nuh-uh. You’re the one being ridiculous. You died, Cameron. And we almost didn’t get you back.”
“I only sort-of died,” he protested. “And you did get me back, so…”
Camille let out a strangled noise, shaking her head in disbelief. “And we want to keep you here with us. In one piece.” She resorted to dirty tactics. “You have no idea what your dying did to Kirsten. You didn’t see all of it. She was in pieces. You want to do that to her again?”
Cameron frowned at her, ceasing his efforts to get out of bed for the time being. “Emotions. Those things she doesn’t usually feel?” Camille nodded at him, and Cameron frowned harder. “Could they... I mean, they were probably just residual, right?”
“That was not residual emotion,” Camille said, firmly. “And even if it was,” she continued, overriding whatever he was trying to say next, “she’s not the only one who cares about you, okay? Do you know how it tore through that lab when you killed yourself? Do you have any idea what Maggie looked like? What about Ayo, Cameron? Chelsea called your time of death because Ayo couldn’t seem to bring you back. Do you know how hard Linus cried? And… and Alex…”
Like with Fisher, the words just poured out from some deep pit of grief and horror inside of her. And before she knew it, Cameron was tugging her down to him, curling him in his arms and cradling her close, getting her tangled in his wiring.
“I’m sorry,” he said, and his voice was dripping with guilt. “I’m so sorry. It’s okay. It worked out. We’re all okay.”
She allowed herself the moment of indulgence of laying her head against his collarbone and letting him hold her close. Then she gently pulled away, glad to find that she was only crying a little.
“We need to keep you that way,” she said, firmly. “We’ll take care of Kirsten until you can do it again, okay? But you gotta take care of yourself. And stay put.”
Cameron sighed but gave a short nod of capitulation. Camille stroked hair out of his eyes almost automatically.
“Go sit with Fisher,” he said, voice suddenly very tired again. “I’ll be okay – he needs you more.”
“He’s just down the hall. I can move between your rooms,” Camille said, firmly. “And for now I’m here. Just until you fall asleep.” She gave him a falsely sweet smile. “Just in case.”
He pulled a face at her, exaggerated but with an undertone of real, wary displeasure. “This is sounding very familiar, and I don’t like it,” he muttered.
She had nothing to say to that that wouldn’t be her prompting him for more harrowing deep information that he looked in no shape to give, so she went back to stroking his hair as he slowly fell asleep beside her. She was sure he was out again when her phone rang, and she swore as she fumbled for it, not managing to silence it before Cameron’s eyes opened again. Her side of the conversation was short and breathless as the feeling of being sucker-punched settled deep into her gut.
“What’s wrong?” Cameron asked as soon as she hung up, his hand squeezing her elbow.
“Les Turner is dead,” Camille said, shock making her voice flat. She met Cameron’s wide eyes with disbelief. “Kirsten found him shot in his apartment. I…”
Cameron exhaled, then looked determined, giving her another squeeze. “Go,” he said, in a tone firm enough it belied the general weakness of his voice. “They need you in that lab to stitch into him and to stop it from going to hell.”
Linus came careening into Cameron’s room at that moment, face ashen and eyes huge. “Turner,” he choked, and Camille nodded at him, grimly. “We gotta go.”
Camille got off Cameron’s bed, squeezing his hand in goodbye. “If you do something dumb, I’ll make your life very difficult for you,” she threatened. “And I mean that.”
Cameron grinned at her lopsidedly. “Do me proud – make it a good movie quote, Sweetness,” he said, and she grinned back widely.
***
Cameron knew the drill by now – advances in medicine showed that the sooner heart patients got up and moving again, the better. It didn’t take long for the nurses to give him the soft go-ahead, and as soon as they had he was up and putting on something less horrifying than a hospital gown and using years of tricks to manage to shuffle down to Fisher’s room.
The detective was mostly awake when Cameron let himself in, and he looked utterly surprised to see Cameron somewhat-walking into his room on his own strength.
“You look like hell,” Fisher told him as he dropped into the chair beside Fisher’s bed.
Cameron snorted, giving him the once over. “Says you.” He let a beat pass. “Look, I know I asked Kirsten to say it already, but… thanks, dude. For saving me in the restaurant.”
Fisher frowned. “I don’t want your gratitude.” The sudden flash of surprised hurt knifed through Cameron strong and true. “I’ve just heard how you repay debts, kid. I don’t want you getting any more ideas.”
Cameron relaxed a little as the sting of rejection receded. Friends. They were friends. Or, at least, nearly there.
“Kid?” Cameron scoffed.
“You are still a kid,” Fisher said, firmly. “For all your brains. Which I’m doubting a little you have after that stunt you pulled.” Cameron started to answer, but Fisher held up a shaking hand and his mouth snapped shut. “You got a life waiting for you, Goodkin. Don’t do that to your lab. Your work, or the people in it. Take it from somebody who has thrown away everything for his job. It’s not worth it.”
“To protect them – ” Cameron started, hotly.
“I know,” Fisher’s insistence was heavy and very knowing. “Trust me – I get that. But you also gotta realise that sometimes that kind of sacrifice is not what people need most from you; that they need you to give something more. Something that’s a little harder than just going out in a blaze of glory.”
Cameron was quiet for a long moment, thoughts churning. When he looked over again, Fisher gave him a soft smile. They didn’t talk much, after that, but the silence was anything but awkward.
***
Cameron tried to be patient, knowing they were probably not answering his texts because they were incredibly busy, and not because they were purposefully ignoring him. But even though he kept himself from sending a dozen follow-up texts, he couldn’t stop thinking about what was potentially happening at the lab. Who had shot Turner? Were the others in danger? Had the stitch gone well? Had Kirsten found out if Fisher had been right – had Turner been the one to shoot Ed?
He started trying to sweetalk the nurses into giving him signout papers, and when the sweetalking didn’t work he started getting a bit more insistent. One didn’t grow up with a doctor as a mother, or spend as much time in hospitals as he had, and not learn one’s rights. But it turned out that the hospital had an Ace up their sleeve as well – one in the form of Ayo, who appeared in his doorway and folded her arms at him, frowning severely, as he sat stubbornly on the edge of his bed and fidgeted.
“I told them to call me when you got impossible,” she informed him.
Guilt slumped his shoulders and made his smile sheepish. “Hey, now. I’ve mostly been good, okay? I just… Our big boss is dead,” he said in a lower voice. “And nobody is telling me what the hell is going on. I just… I need to help, Ayo.”
“I know,” she replied. “And I know you sitting here getting worked up will not help matters. So I’ve come to sign you out.” Cameron brightened like the sun coming out from behind the clouds, and Ayo held up a finger at him. “On my terms,” she said, sternly. “You are going to sit still. You are going to interject only when you are asked to. You are going to suffer me checking your stats every hour. And you are going to be removed from the lab if you don’t stop yourself stressing. Am I – ” Her voice wavered and she cut herself off before saying the last word. There was something raw on her face, but she took a deep breath and finished. “Clear.”
How many times had she yelled that word over him not a day ago? Cameron’s heart broke a little for her. “I’ll be good,” he promised, softly.
Ayo walked to his side and handed him a pile of clothes. And then, seemingly impulsively, she bent and gave him a kiss on the forehead. She let him change while she filled out paperwork, and stink-eyed him before he had a chance to protest the hospital’s policy of a wheelchair. But she didn’t berate him any further and didn’t give him a list of things he could and could not do, and Cameron was so entirely grateful to her that he hugged her close, for a moment, as they descended in the elevator.
Nobody had warned him about the tall, hulking NSA agents, and Cameron was so thrown that it took him a moment to realise that the rest of the lab would be less over-enthusiastic at his return. He hated the attention and the over-concern and the babying, but he bit his tongue and let it happen and then firmly shooed people back to work, eying the NSA agents with almost instant dislike. He could only imagine what they’d been saying and implying to his people. He hated bullies.
“Doctor Goodkin,” Maggie said, suddenly at his side. She was seemingly watching them prep Turner for another stitch, but Cameron wasn’t fooled – he knew all her attention was on him. “Do I even need to start?”
“No,” Cameron said, warily. “But, for the record, I’m not sorry for doing it.”
Maggie sighed. “That’s what I was afraid of.”
“I made sure there was somebody to replace me,” Cameron offered. “Camille’s been doing a great job. You guys would have been fine.”
Maggie looked at him, then, and her expression was so very, very odd. “That’s not what this talk is about, Cameron,” she said, very quietly, and left Cameron floored and somehow wanting to apologise to her, too.
Linus filled him in on Turner’s fractured memories, and took Cameron’s suggestions of things he’d already tried in good spirit. Finally, sheepish, Cameron heeded Ayo’s look at him from across the room and shuffled to the seat they’d brought him beside his own desk. Camille was already there, buzzing nervously, and he rubbed her arm in reassurance. The stitch started out frustrating but okay – and then it all went to shit, guns being drawn all over and Kirsten accusing Maggie of shooting Turner and what the absolute hell. Cameron could only sit there, hands raised slightly, looking around and hoping to hell nobody got shot on top of everything else.
And then Linus barrelled in and was brilliant. So brilliant, Cameron wished he was beside him so he could give the best fist bump and genuine hug he could. Damn, he loved what Linus’ innovations gave them. And he loved it even more when Linus turned to him in the midst of giving orders and included him.
“Cameron, head to engineering.” Everybody stared at Linus for a moment in dumb shock. “Come on, move!” And Cameron moved, skidding a little over the floor, a little bewildered, but determined none-the-less, shaking off Tim’s grumbles with a mutter.
“What’s going on?” Kirsten demanded.
“Turner’s memories exploded into three dimensions,” Linus explained quickly. “We need three separate controllers to re-align the fragments. I’m re-routing Turner’s mindmap to all the terminals now. We need to rotate the pieces together. Okay – just watch the map. It’s like doing a 3D jigsaw puzzle. Ready? Go!”
Cameron’s hands were shaking, slightly, but they worked well enough for him to help Camille and Linus align Turner’s memories just enough for Kirsten to clear Maggie’s name. The guns were put away slowly and the entire lab allowed itself a sigh of relief as Kirsten bounced. And then tension returned as Kirsten, sat up in the tank and immediately sought him out.
“Cameron? Are you okay?”
Every eye in the room zeroed in on him at once, and the expressions on people’s faces were not ones he wanted to see. He curled his hands into fists to hide the shaking and tried not to visibly sag against the desk. He assured them that he was fine, but then there were people all around him, concerned and smothering, and he knew he had to set the boundary line then and there or return back to his nightmarish teen years.
“I’m fine,” he said, firmly, backing away and raising both his hands. “I swear to you all. Please just… just back off. I barely survived having one mother, okay? I really don’t need a whole team of them.”
People blinked at him in shock for a moment before Maggie’s voice floated over. “Then don’t give us cause to mother you,” she said, simply. Cameron met her eye, and the whole team watched them watching each other. “Is there anything we need to know, Cameron?”
He saw Ayo looking at him from the corner of his eye, and knew that when he answered, “No. It’s all over,” that she would know he was lying. But he also knew she would hold her peace, and that was all he really needed.
“Okay, then. Everybody, let him be; we have work to do. Cameron, you’re allowed to be here but you only start work again in three days. Got it?”
He nodded and gave the station back to Tim, slowly making his way back to his desk. Camille was frowning at him. “I saw that look on Ayo’s face,” she said, quietly, her gaze intense. “And we’re going to talk about it sometime.”
He avoided her gaze. “There’s nothing to talk about.”
“Sorry,” Camille said, pulling a face that was anything but apologetic. “You only get to pull that one with people who aren’t your friends.” She stared at him defiantly, waiting for him to suggest that he should just make them not friends any more, then, but he couldn’t bring himself to even pretend he could make that call. Her gaze softened and she rubbed his arm. “Trust me,” she said, quietly, and he sighed.
He sunk into his own chair a moment later, his legs betraying him, and watched the lab try to sort itself out after the chaos of the past few days. Camille offered him a ride home but he declined, sending her after a harried-looking Kirsten instead. And he was still there, watching people fix the lab, when Camille came rushing back into the lab, her face pale and her eyes once again wide.
“What happened?” Cameron used the desk to lever himself upright, keeping a grip on it to ride out the inevitable vertigo. “Camille, what’s wrong?”
“I… you won’t believe me if I told you,” she said, laughing shakily. “You have to come see.”
She let Cameron get his legs while she turned to find Maggie, and then came back to unobtrusively grab him by the elbow so she could support him to the elevator. He was ashamed that he needed her help, and didn’t meet Maggie’s eyes when his boss glanced at him sharply. And then he forgot all about his shame and embarrassment, because they were being taken to a room that shouldn’t exist, that was freezing cold and that held…
“That’s…” Cameron said, unable to complete the sentence, because he was staring at the absolute impossible before him.
“Ed Clark,” Maggie breathed beside him.
“Turner’s had him here right under our noses since his murder.” Kirsten looked and sounded pissed but all Cameron could focus on was the body of Ed Freaking Clark in a room that shouldn’t exist. “Why?”
“I didn’t know anything about this chamber,” Maggie said, calmly, and a horrible realisation started dawning on Cameron.
“This is your lab! How could you not know?” Kirsten yelled.
“Because I didn’t,” Maggie snapped back, firmly.
Cameron’s stomach had sunk right past his feet and through the floor. Faint memories of things he and Turner had talked about resurfaced, and in horror he realised that he knew more about this room than Maggie did. “Son of a bitch built it,” he said softly, reeling. His lab. Turner had done this above his lab. With some of his help.
“You knew about this?” Kirsten shot at him.
“No!” Cameron reassured her. But that wasn’t the whole truth. “I mean… not exactly. Turner once asked if I could design a drug protocol to extend the shelflife of our subjects. Something about breaking the four-day limit on viability.” He’d made it sound like a dream. For one day. The one day when the lab was replicated across the world and helping thousands. And Cameron… had fallen for it.
“So you helped him build this? And you didn’t tell me.” There was a break in Kirsten’s voice; a raw betrayal that made something in Cameron’s chest clench. And then keep clenching. Damnit, not now.
“It was a theoretical conversation,” he pleaded with her, involuntarily taking a step back and feeling how Camille shifted closer to support more of him. “I drew up some preliminary plans. I didn’t know he was going to use them.”
“Well he did,” Kirsten snapped, unforgiving. “And Ed was the guinea pig for your experiment.”
Cameron’s heart sank lower at the look in her eyes, and then rebuked him for the emotion by clenching his chest tighter. He tried to breathe normally through the pressure, keeping his gaze locked with Kirsten’s but unable to answer without upsetting her further or giving away the sudden fluttering of his heart. Kirsten turned her ire onto Maggie instead, and Camille tugged on Cameron’s arm, silently concerned. He gave her an approximation of a smile that did nothing to reassure her, and then tried to focus on Kirsten and the not-cremated Ed and the fact that his legs suddenly felt a whole lot like Jello.
“So what do we do?” Camille interjected before the fight could continue, pulling more of Cameron’s weight onto her despite him trying to stop her.
“What I’ve wanted to do since the very beginning. We stitch into Ed.”
Cameron gulped past the tightness and shortness of breath at that, not willing to risk Kirsten. Not after the bad luck their lab had been having with near-misses. “We have no way of knowing if his memories are even viable.”
Kirsten rounded on him. True anger on her was, he discovered, hurtful to watch. “Everything that happened to us began with Ed’s murder – it started with Ed. Maybe he has answers. And nobody,” she said, shooting a glare at Maggie, “is going to stop me from looking for them.”
It was only Camille’s hold on him that kept him upright when Kirsten brushed past him, and he exhaled shakily when the brunette cursed.
“I mean, seriously,” Camille hissed. “I get that she’s pissed but – Shit, Cameron.” She’d found a pulse point and his secret was out. Camille’s face was alarmed. “Wh-”
“It’s okay; it’s fine,” he said, feeling exhausted and wrung out and sore and hating every minute of it. He shot a glance at Maggie, who was watching him with narrowed eyes. “I promise; it’s fine. We can even check with Ayo, if you want,” he said, over Camille’s next words. “Just…” He sighed. “I guess we’re stitching Ed Clark.” He frowned at the body, unhappily. “This is not a safe stitch,” he muttered.
They waited until Kirsten got off the elevator and then rode down together in silence. Ayo was waiting for Cameron, and descended upon him as soon as the doors opened. Camille deposited him in a chair and left him to Ayo, only because she was needed elsewhere. He was, admittedly, glad to see her go; people hovering just made it worse.
“Scale of one to ten,” Ayo asked him quietly.
“Four,” Cameron said after a moment of contemplation. “I swear,” he added, at Ayo’s stern look. “It doesn’t hurt. Just… uncomfortable.”
He took the pills she wordlessly handed over and then braced his elbows on his knees, waiting it out. Breathing was easier, sitting down, but he hated how his limbs were shaking. But even worse than that was the memory of Kirsten’s face and accusations. He had helped Turner keep Ed from her. He’d been the one to hand Turner all he needed to build a miniature lab and keep Ed Clark locked away in secret. Which begged the question – what else had Cameron helped Turner do?
“Hey.” Camille’s hand stroked his hair, and he jumped a little, having zoned out. “You doing okay?” He sighed at her for the question, and she sighed back. “Okay, okay, fine. Sorry.”
“You ready for this stitch?” His thoughts on the matter were clear in his tone.
“I… guess. Could you… I mean… If you need to stay here then… But I’d like you to…”
He hesitated a moment and then held his hand out. “Hand up?” he asked, quietly. Camille complied gently and then gripped his elbow when he swayed a little. “Thanks.”
Things were better, but it was still much harder to breathe than usual. Camille stuck close as they made their way back to his desk, and he sunk into a chair gratefully, automatically hiding his shaking hands from sight. Kirsten came out, dressed in the stitch suit, and he saw Linus, Camille and Alex all glancing his way a little helplessly. He asked for an extra com link and, as soon as he put it in, started trying to prepare Kirsten for what he was sure was a very, very bad idea.
“Listen, Kirsten. With the new protocol, Ed’s memories are impossible to map. So we’re going to use the mindmap we generated the first time we stitched into Ed.”
She glanced his way, face impassive. Now that he’d seen real emotions on it, the shutdown was a slap in the face. “Is it safe?”
“I’m not sure. But the moment it goes sideways, Camille is going to bounce yo-“
“No, she’s not,” Kirsten snapped. She glared at Cameron fiercely. “This stitch is mine.”
Without another word, she turned her back on him and got into the fishtank. Cameron scoffed and then ran a hand down his face. “Fine,” he muttered.
He wanted to keep a hand on Camille’s knee for support, but he also didn’t want to give her any more reason to worry. So he kept his hands to himself, watching her run the go/no gos and start the stitch. Every inch of him was chomping at the bit to be the one piloting, but he wasn’t an idiot. And he had seen more than once how good Camille was.
“Okay, Kirsten, we’ve moved you to Ed’s last available memory. How does it look?”
“Not good,” Kirsten grouched. “Cameron, your drug protocol sucks.”
He felt the barb and frowned, sinking lower into his chair. Camille gave him a sympathetic wince that he simply inclined his head at. Camille and Kirsten went back to the stitch and somewhere in his focus on what they were saying, he started rubbing at his chest automatically. Camille unfortunately caught the movement, and her expression flickered with worry for a moment before she lost herself back to the piloting. Not that it was doing much good – as he’d feared, Ed’s memory was just too far gone. But they had to do something, or Kirsten would never forgive him. Not even after he’d tried everything to keep her safe and prove himself trustworthy.
“Alex,” Cameron called, forcing his voice stronger than it was. The plan was stupidly crazy, but it was the only one he had. He wanted to give the commands standing, but a half attempt at that reassured him that it was not a good idea. Not if he didn’t want to collapse in front of the whole lab he was trying to assure he was just fine. “On my signal, increase glutamate and atropine level to one hundred percent.”
Alex side-eyed him for a moment. “You sure?”
“Yes. Just do it. Linus? Increase conductivity to every sensory target zone.”
Camille looked at him, sharply. “If you do this, Ed’s memory’s gonna flame out.”
“Look, there’s barely any memory left,” he argued back, his face pleading with her to trust him. They had to try. They had to try everything. Camille exhaled shakily, but nodded. “Kirsten? Brace yourself; we’re going to fire every synapse Ed’s got left.”
Maggie leaned behind Camille to glare at Cameron. “Can Kirsten’s mind take it?”
“Okay, Kirsten, the Rev 2 suit is meant to protect you. It’s made of tough stuff, just like the person wearing it.” He took a deep breath, trying not to notice how it caught a little. Damnit. “Okay. Go, Alex.” Cameron’s hand returned automatically to his chest as Alex leapt into motion.
“One hundred percent,” Alex confirmed.
“Linus, go.”
“I hope you know what you’re doing,” Linus said, and Cameron had to bite on his tongue to echo the sentiment.
The relief when she bounced out of the stitch unharmed had him sagging. Maggie and Kirsten got into an argument about protection detail and Camille sank to Cameron’s side at once, her face pinched again. He hated that he’d put that expression on her face so many times.
“Hanging in there?”
“Yeah. I’m fine.” She gave him a disbelieving look. “I am. Just… still a little tired.” His heart was mostly behaving; Ayo’s pills had helped. But he still felt exhausted and wrung out. And not just physically. He reached for Camille’s hand, not caring about the leftover tremor in his fingers. “You were amazing, darling,” he said, sincerely. “If I’m not careful, you’re going to have me out of a job.”
She scoffed at him, but still looked pleased. And then her gaze turned calculating. “Cam?”
“Hmm?”
“You know she was just hurt and angry, and didn’t know how to deal with it, right? Ed wasn’t your fault.” Cameron looked away and Camille gripped his shoulder. “It wasn’t. You didn’t know. And you helped her try to put it right.”
He tried to cling to her reassurances – tried to hand them to Kirsten before she left. But he didn’t really believe it, and it seemed she didn’t, either. She left without a proper goodbye, her accusations about him having secrets and being untrustworthy stinging like physical blows. I died for you, he wanted to tell her, desperate, but it hadn’t helped the first time he’d said it, and he doubted it would help then. The euphoria from earlier had drained away to a hollow desperation. He may have finally beaten the looming shadow over his life, but it hadn’t really helped anything. His absolute most hadn’t been enough for Kirsten to trust him, let alone love him. They hadn’t gotten Barbiaro’s boss. The big bad was still out there. And he’d unintentionally helped Turner desecrate somebody Kirsten cared about deeply.
“I think,” Camille said quietly beside him, “that she needs a few moments by herself to cool off. So I’m taking you home” – she spoke louder over the start of his insistence that he could take a cab – “and then I’m going to drink some of your wine. And then I’m going to take the rest of it home so I can drink it with Kirsten.”
Cameron had to laugh at her, even if it was shaky. “Sounds like a plan.”
She offered him her hand again, and as much as he wanted to wave it off he was just too low in all ways to refuse it. Once again she held on while the vertigo passed, and then she hooked her arm in with his and they wandered to the elevator together. Linus joined him, but he was on the phone – to an estate agent, apparently. Cameron and Camille shared an amused glance and gave him a silent wave farewell, which he returned enthusiastically before returning to his call.
It was a short walk to Camille’s car, and another short one to his elevator and then into his loft, but even so Cameron was flagging by the time he let himself in, and his heart was starting to stutter a bit in warning. He hoped it got with the programme not to be a melodramatic asshole sometime very soon, or he was going to go up the wall.
“Cameron…” Camille was looking at him with a soft but hesitant look on her face. He realised he was absently rubbing at his chest again, and immediately stopped. “We are going to talk about that, you know?” she said, but it came out less insistent than she probably meant it to be.
She was torn, he realised, between caring deeply for him and not wanting to drive him away by overstepping boundaries. And he could, he also realised, shut her down right there and then. Tell her to back off and never have to deal with her worry or her protectiveness again. And if she went down, it would be easy to shut down Linus and even Fisher. Maggie would fall away on her own. And Kirsten… didn’t really seem to care that much, any more. His heart hurt for a purely different reason at that thought.
And it was that sort of pain that had him taking a leap of faith. “Yeah, Gumdrop, okay,” he said, softly. “We can do that.” Camille’s face cleared. “But just… don’t fret, okay? I promise I really am fine. Dying a little didn’t change anything.”
“That’s a lot less reassuring than you meant it to be,” she told him, and he laughed a little.
“Steal my wine and go and get drunk with your roommate,” he told her, fondly, standing and stretching very, very carefully. “I’m going the hell to sleep.”
“Two very excellent plans of yours, sir,” she said. “Go on. I’ll let myself out.” But as he turned to shuffle to his room, Camille wrapped a gentle arm around him. It was less of a hug and more of a… lean. And he let himself melt into the embrace. “It’s all going to be okay,” she assured him, softly. “We’ll make it through this, too.”
“I know.” He paused. “I’m dead sure of it.”
Camille groaned loudly and playfully shoved him towards his bedroom, fingers trailing softly down his back in goodbye and reassurance.
