@doctordonovan | continued.
he has her back - regardless of anything or everything else: no matter what has happened, and certainly no matter how recent rough patch still plays on her mind when she allows her defences to slip a little too down. they’ve almost lost each other enough times that the determination they keep showing in finding each other again will never be silenced by a few self indulgent IOA threats. ( no matter what maeve might believe best for him, when has cam ever been the type to choose his career over loyalty to those he cares about? )
❝ avoiding her still counts as resisting the urge to argue with her. ❞ it is not as though he can be blamed for it: his family, his childhood, had very few similarities. would they work as well as they do if the very sincerity of his nature didn’t still - after so many years - sometimes catch her by surprise. his and mary’s differences were hardly the sort of matters that could be fixed, nor were they issues maeve herself had ever particularly stopped to linger upon. she had died, world had moved on. why would her mother have been any different just because cam’s faith in her had surpassed all possible odds?
few parts of her life ever really seem to fit together, to match each other in the slightest. it has been a lifetime of playing needed roles: of being what all require from her and hiding from needing to truly figure own core out. cam of all people has met enough versions of her to know how it has gone - from dryly amused fake blonde at double date to a shell barely returned from her time with d’ane. he knows her, she knows him. knows the novels that tiny expression changes write, knows the fact she’ll likely never get an exact translation as to what it all means as his mind finally seems to settle a little more on their discussion. things are rarely fine, that much needs no saying, she’s reminded of that basic fact every time even just moving or stretching has near miss upon his spine and bones screaming in an agony he will never fully tell her about. he is grateful to simply be alive, to make his way onwards, who is she to ruin that with her need to always understand?
it’s not as though she mentions her headaches either. ❝ you’re very welcome. ❞ when has she ever protested at easily returned little kiss? fingers moving to lightly squeeze his hands again. ❝ you know I’m here, right? even if I’m not always the most practical help. I do have a way of angering the military, it’s a gift. ❞
he finds himself grateful she doesn’t ask, that he doesn’t have to explain that which is, somehow, so hard to put into words. he can scarcely hope to explain, after all, the way she settles him, grounds him against frustration, against fear. she knows anyway, he thinks, he hopes. there is only forwards to go, impossible though it may seem, and neither despair nor anger can reveal another path, a different option.
❛ I’ll keep it in mind as a last-ditch option. ❜ joking aside, cam would never willingly let her risk her life and career by truly angering the military ( not beyond the distrust that has yet to fade and that they might always harbor toward her ). no revenge for the position they have placed him in could ever be worth that.
yet he does know that she is there, would have known it even if she hadn’t just proven it to him, even if he hadn’t derailed her own obligations in his desperate need for her to set things right, to put his head back on straight and shift the perspective he knew had twisted. ❛ though, if I keep you from your work much longer, you might accidentally anger landry right off the bat. ❜ or perhaps it’s cam who will bear the brunt of that anger for distracting the scientist from her responsibilities even as he neglects his own. a sigh escapes cam’s lips, fatigue settling into the emptiness left by former emotions. ❛ I should let you go back. ❜
as if that doesn’t mean letting go of his lifeline, trusting himself to stand firm upon his own two feet. the thought sparks a return of anxieties he is quick to squash down. instead, he justifies stealing a little more time by applying it practically. ❛ maeve, you know these people better than me... don’t suppose you have any recommendations. ❜