deleted scene: cameron
blackthornxw said: Hi Cassie! I don’t know if you had talked about this before but I would like to know more about Cameron Ashdown. He will appear in Qoaad? How did he and Emma meet each other? I know Emma loves Julian but she didn’t had feel anything for Cam?
She didn’t feel nothing for him, but she didn’t love him. Not at all like she’s in love with Julian. I think she was fond of Cameron, and she’d known him for a long time, their families had interacted over many years. I think she may well even have crushed on him for a while. But not every relationship is an epic love story. :) Cameron, however, has some hidden depths you’ll see on display in Queen, and an unexpected part to play.
In the meantime, I turned up a deleted scene from Lady Midnight with Cameron in it. The characters don’t feel quite like their eventual selves to me, and I’m glad I took it out — it flatly spelled out things that worked much better revealed more carefully — but it’s kind of interesting!
Emma turned to head down the beach to the shoreline. That was when she saw him. Silhouetted against the water. She wondered how long he’d been standing there, hands in the pockets of his jeans.
“Cam?” she said.
Cameron Ashdown walked toward her, the wind off the ocean tousling his dark auburn hair. He’d always looked like a picture-perfect California surfer boy, even though the Ashdown family were Scottish, as far as she remembered. His shoulders were broad, his eyes were blue, and there was a spray of freckles across his nose.
“I texted you,” he said. “Last night. And this morning.”
“I know.” She put her hands on her hips. She felt slightly undressed, not so much because she was only wearing a sports bra and running pants, but more because when she was training, she felt vulnerable. She didn’t mind training with Cristina, Julian, or any of the Blackthorns, but anyone else from the Conclave, even Cam, was — different. “But we broke up, so —“
He laughed shortly. “Classic, Emma,” he said. “You broke up with me, so you don’t ever have to talk to me again?”
“I think that is how it works. Technically,” Emma said. “If we did still have to talk with each other, what would be the point of breaking up?”
He shook his head. “The thing is, you actually mean that.”
She rubbed her hands up and down her arms. The wind off the ocean chilled the sweat on her body, and all she wanted was to get away. “Cam, I am sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”
He looked up toward the sky, as if hoping for celestial support. “I am so stupid,” he said. “This is what, the third time? And I thought it would be different. I figured, why would you keep coming back if you didn’t actually like me?”
“I do like you. I always have liked you.” It was true; she’d always liked Cam — a lot of the members of the Conclave, like Cam’s awful sister Paige, could be viciously nasty about the Blackthorns and their connections to Fae. But Cam had never been. “So why break up with me?”
Emma tucked a damp curl of hair back behind her ear. “I don’t know,” she said. “I guess I thought it had run its course.”
“Run its course?” he echoed. “And that means what?”
She felt herself flush. “That it was never supposed to be serious. Right?”
Cam moved toward her. The sun was truly up now, casting his shadow lightly against the sand. He reached out, and she let him take her forearms, his tanned, freckled fingers spanning their width. “Emma,” he said. “You only have one serious relationship, and that’s with Julian Blackthorn.”
“He’s my parabatai,” she said. “Of course it’s a serious relationship.” She looked up into his blue eyes, squinted against the rising sun. “Why are you here?” she said. “I don’t know what I can tell you to make it different, besides that I’m sorry. Does that help?”
“Not really,” he said. “As for why I’m here — every other time you’ve dumped me on my ass, I have come by, just for the record. I think if you’re going to end a relationship, you should do it in person.”
“You’ve never come by —“
“I have,” he repeated. “I’ve just always run into Julian first.” He let go of her forearms. “You know, it’s weird,” he said. “He’s not bigger than me, and I don’t even think he’s a better fighter.”
Emma wanted to protest, wanted to say Julian could slay Cameron Ashdown with a crossbow, wanted to say that not everyone had to go around sporting huge muscles and a giant neck to prove they were strong. She’d seen Jules bend steel girders; he was as strong as any Shadowhunter needed to be. But she held herself back because she wanted to know what Cam was going to say next.
“But he’s damn convincing,” Cameron said. “I’d show up at the Institute and he’d get to me before I ever got to you. And somehow I’d find myself leaving without talking to you. So I’d wait around, until you wanted me again for some fun or company or whatever. You think I haven’t noticed that you called me and asked if I wanted to go out the day after Julian left for England, and you dumped me the day before he got back?”
“I didn’t know you were so intimately familiar with Jules’ travel schedule,” Emma snapped. “Maybe you should be dating him, if you care so much where he is.”
“I care because you care,” said Cam. “You know I’m right.”
“I know you’re jealous,” Emma said, and immediately regretted it.
“Yeah, I am,” said Cam. “Jealous of your parabatai. That’s a little weird, isn’t it? I mean, he’s supposed to be like a brother to you. Protective, maybe, but what you have between you — it’s different. I’ve been alone with you, and I’ve been with you when he’s around, and it’s like you’re a totally different person. Like he turns on a light inside you. I thought maybe I could make you like me enough that I could turn that light on for you, but —“ He broke off, shaking his head. “I don’t think anyone can.”
“You’re crazy,” she said. “It’s not like that.”
“Anyway, I came because I wanted to see you before Julian got back and stopped me,” he said. “That’s it. I didn’t really think I could change your mind.”
The tide had started to come in; it was lapping at their shoes. “I really would like to be friends,” Emma said. “With you.”
The expression that crossed his handsome face was unreadable. “We’ll see.” He turned away, and she watched him go, his shoes crunching on the sand. A few steps away he spun around to face her again. “About Julian,” he said.
She looked at him.
“There’s something cold in him,” he said. “Something scary. I don’t think you see it, but everyone else does.”
She thought of Julian, flecks of paint in his dark hair; Julian picking up Tavvy and swinging him around, Julian bandaging Dru’s scraped knees and smiling at Ty when Ty was clever and cheering Livvy on when she learned to use a sabre. Julian, grinning at her like sunrise.
“Julian isn’t cold,” she said, biting off each word. “Don’t you ever say that again.”
His face had gone stiff. “I guess you two deserve each other,” he said, and turned around. She refused to watch him walk away.
