Dee's brief feels.

 “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.”

The first person to find out was Maggie.

 Well. No. If one wanted to be incredibly accurate about it, the first people to find out about his heart surgery were his parents, as they’d been at his bedside as soon as he was rolled out of the operating theatre. And after them came a slew of nurses and doctors, some friends of the family and some people they employed to look after him or to stop him from going up the wall in frustration while his mom kept him as locked up as she could.

 But the first person to find out post his eighteenth birthday and final escape into independence was Maggie, and as far as Cameron was concerned she may as well have been the first. Everybody else had been told about him; over his head and despite his protests. And their reactions to knowing had been various shades of the same constricting cloth. And Maggie…

 Maggie had appeared out of the crowd of people at the MIT table at the science conference as though she’d materialised only a second before, back straight and eyes piercing and set of her mouth decidedly no-nonsense. She hadn’t bothered even glancing at the other exhibits; had marched directly up to his and had started firing questions at him like the frontline artillery of a war. He answered, a little bewildered, a little caught off guard, a lot intimidated, until the niggling suspicion got loud enough that he blurted it out loud.

 “You’re not… really interested in this, are you?”

 “What makes you think that?” Her gaze was a dark glacier.

 “You…” He remembered squashing the model of the brain he’d been holding because his nervousness caused his fingers to twist it too many times. “There’s too much… detachment, there.”

 Not everybody was passionate and excited about the mind, he knew, but everybody who asked beyond the usual checklist of questions had a… a spark. A connection to the thing that reflected in their eyes. He learned rather quickly that this was her way with almost everything, and learned just as quickly that his own bias toward warmth and passion and true connection would halt any real relationship forming between them, to the point where she would, many years later, accuse him of disliking her. But at that first meeting, without many interactions to show him how to read the signs, all he saw was the wall of precision that juxtaposed so spectacularly with the questions of interest she sent his way.

 “No,” she said, after a beat. “I’m not interested. Not in this particular presentation, anyway. I am, however, interested in you, Doctor Goodkin. In your work. And in your mind.” Cameron squirmed under the calculating look she sent him, twenty-two and still trying to get used to the doctor before his name being literal and not just teasing. “I’ve spent a lot of time researching you.”

 His tongue used the time where his filter was shut down by his surprise to blurt, “Are you going to tell me to choose between a red and blue pill, next?”

 Maggie stared at him in blank, reproachful silence for a moment and just as he began feeling mortified she replied, “Maybe. That depends on how you see my offer.” She put a business card down on the table in front of him. “Call me, and we’ll set up a time when you can meet alone. Without any…” She glanced to the right, and Cameron saw his supervisor returning from his bathroom break. “…interference.”

 And then she’d melted back into the crowd, back straight, eyes forward, and he’d wondered if one of the other guys was playing a prank on him. It took a while to call the number on the card, and even when they met up again the desire to ask whether he was having his chain yanked burned strong on the tip of his tongue. Maggie introduced herself then – the casually added NSA to her name and surname had the intended effect on him, he was sure – and instead of giving him answers she gave him more questions. Thirty-four of them, to be exact – hypothetical situations she wanted to see if he could solve and how long it would take him to do so. None of it made any sense, but he was waiting for people to email him back so he got started on the problems. And then he got sucked in. And then he was making a ten pm decision to screw sleep and the actual work he had to do, because the hypothetical situations were both completely science-fiction but also, strangely, excitingly, impossibly real.

 Three days later he shoved a stack of documents – hand-written, because he’d been told not to trust any printers – at Maggie, and spending some of the tensest moments of his life watching her flick through things. When she looked at him next, there was almost a smile of approval on her face. She, in turn, shoved a thick stack of documents towards him. An algorithm. An algorithm that, apparently, made the ludicrously science-fiction things he’d been working on neither science-fiction, only hypothetical or ludicrous.

 “Is this for real?” He finally couldn’t help but blurt the question out, leafing through an impossibility. He was a scientist, for heaven’s sake. But also… But also. “Can this… does it work?”

 “It could,” Maggie told him, still straight-faced. “If your designed tools and adjustments are good enough.”

  Cameron must have laughed, but he could never quite remember how he’d reacted to that knowledge. Probably like a gibbering idiot, some sober part of him liked to hypothesise when he thought back. In any case, Maggie didn’t change her mind. Instead, she explained that they had a location for a lab, and an opening as head of that lab that he could fit into. She explained the utmost secrecy the job would entail. She explained unnecessary things like how many people they’d be able to help if the algorithm on the paper managed to be turned into actual, working science. She explained that she had names of many others that he would help her interview for his lab once some of the hypothetical things he’d created for her had been tweaked now that he knew they were not-so-hypothetical. She explained that the list of others were all the best in the country and even in the world; that the team under their leadership would be brilliant and passionate and able to break ground and innovate in ways even his most passionate, secret dreams had never dared hope.

 And his only response, other than slack-jawed shock and gibbering idiocy, was, “Why me?”

 “We’ve approached others over many years,” Maggie admitted, calmly. “Some of them got further along in our interview process than you are right now. But they couldn’t take it to the point where the theory was made a reality. You were just next on the list of people to approach.”

 And, somehow, that made Cameron feel better instead of stung; made it more realistic and more attainable and less like something that was going to be proven to be a hoax. If he didn’t get this fantasy lab with the brightest in the country, if he didn’t get to make and update already existing technology that would look into dead people’s brains, then it would simply be because he was not smart enough to cut it. Not because the possibility was not a realistic one.

 And then Maggie put another pile of papers – how big their filing room must be – bunched in a folder onto the desk between them. It had his name on the corner, and Cameron eyed it warily before looking at Maggie. She was watching him even more intently than before, the promise of some sort of test in her eyes.

 “As I said before; we’ve been researching you. I have information on you from when you were ten years old.”

 The way she said it made Cameron know instantly that she knew. And he hated it – he hated that this woman who was offering him the potential at everything was the first to find out since he clawed his way to freedom. He hated that she looked at him with the power that knowing gave everybody, and how his words dried up under her gaze, leaving him unable to give a defence. Maggie Baptiste, scary government lady and potentially his boss, was the first to find out.

 And Maggie was the first to ask him. “Will any of this be a problem?”

 She meant his mother and her expectations and her not being able to know why he was quitting MIT. She meant James Miller. She meant that he was twenty-two years old and under the thumb of an old family friend who was only an old family friend because he was wearing brand clothing and driving a car worth more than some people’s apartment buildings. She meant the scarred tissue on his chest, and everything it implied.

 And for the first time, Cameron was able to reply instead of having the decision made for him. “No. It won’t be a problem at all.”

 Maggie watched him for another moment and then nodded. And because of that nod, Cameron put a halt to all of his current research and threw himself at the stitching possibility. So much so, that it only took four days before he was presenting what would become the first draft of the corpse cassette and a simulation that had stolen sleep and some sanity from him. But it gained him his first half-smile from Maggie Baptiste, and her telling him to show up for work on Monday. He, Cameron Goodkin, had done what all of the others she’d approached had never managed to. In four days.

 He grinned back and handed in his resignation to MIT within the hour.

 Ayo was the second to find out.

 Maggie and Cameron had been at a hospital doing a covert interview for some doctor Cameron didn’t remember any more – they’d barely spent five minutes with him before brilliant but no became very apparent where he was concerned – when they ran into her by chance. Their interviewee was walking them down a hallway, nattering on and being generally irritating, when there had been a commotion in a nearby room that distracted them all. The door burst open, and another doctor dragged Ayo out by her arm, already reaming into her. And Ayo stood, back straight and face fierce, and took every comment thrown her way – everything from the possibly warranted right down to the derogatory. And then she fought back with quiet, firm dignity, proving her knowledge and backing up her decisions, ploughing through the anger and the spit and the disgust thrown her way.

 “Do it again,” the doctor seethed, “and you’ll be without a job. I don’t care how much you think you know. This is my department. And you’ll never work for anybody if I say you won’t.”

 Their interviewee said some half-calming words to Ayo that basically implied that although the other doctor was known for being a big-headed jerk she must have screwed up in some way, and she’d shaken her head but said nothing. Their interviewee went inside the room to smooth ruffled feathers, leaving her standing alone and suddenly slumped in the hallway.

And something about that response of hers – or maybe it was something about her eyes – had Cameron undermining Maggie for the first time so he could blurt, without consulting his boss first, “You could work for us.” Ayo blinked at him, uncomprehending, and Cameron saw Maggie cross her arms out of the corner of his eye. But Cameron didn’t care. He wanted this one for their lab; something in his gut told him so. “I mean it,” he said, looking at Ayo and ignoring Maggie. “I don’t care what that guy said. We’d hire you.”

 “For what, exactly?” Ayo said, sounding more tired than interested.

 Cameron glanced at Maggie, who shot him a narrow-eyed look and didn’t move. For a moment, he feared he’d have to take back his offer, but then Maggie unfolded her arms, strode closer to Ayo, and started talking. And the interested quickly grew on Ayo’s face.

 Ayo had been employed by the NSA for three weeks – and still slipped up and called him Doctor Goodkin despite the others having settled happily into the first-name-basis of the lab – when she called him into the medical room she’d rearranged until it somehow reminded him of her. He was still faintly wary of doctors’ rooms for various reasons, and he’d planned to give her the help she needed quickly and then disappear, leaving the more friendly banter for when he was in a space that didn’t smell like memories he’d rather forget.

 “I’m doing a full medical on everybody in the lab,” Ayo told him and dashed every plan of a quick and painless escape in one violent blow. “It’s your turn.”

 “You’re here to watch the vitals of our stitchers,” Cameron protested, standing rooted to the spot. “Not the rest of us. Besides – I’m sure Maggie’s hacked all our medical records.” He’d prefer her not to know at all, but reading it in black and white was far better than her finding out while poking and prodding at him.

 “This whole lab is my responsibility, medically,” Ayo replied, readying tools and charts. “And I’d rather get clean data that I can add to with medical files, if necessary. It’s not exactly like I have a lot of work at the moment, anyway.”

 “Maggie wants me to – ”

 “Maggie gave me permission to do this, Cameron.” Ayo narrowed her eyes at him, suddenly calculating. “She wants the head of her lab in the best hands.”

 “Cut off one head and two more shall take its place.” Cameron was starting to wonder if this was Maggie’s covert way of getting back at him for undermining her with his offer to Ayo. It had all worked out in the end, of course – Ayo was brilliant and a wonderful fit and a wonderful person, besides – but he wouldn’t put it past Maggie to make sure he’d never forget who was really calling the shots again.

 “You’re stalling,” Ayo said, and her voice was suddenly a lot gentler. “I promise, I’m not going to do anything that will make you uncomfortable. It’s just some general check-ups. Okay?”

 It wasn’t okay, but he was backed into a corner. And so he clenched his jaw and let her poke and prod around and tried not to cold-shoulder her as he tersely replied to questions about his contacts, his lack of smoking, his exercise and diet habits and the like. And then the stethoscope came out and she asked him to unbutton his shirt and he sat there for a long, long minute, staring at nothing and trying to tell himself not to whimp out about this. She prompted him with his name, and he did as she asked, and he wasn’t looking at her but he could feel the moment she saw and started putting pieces together.

 “Ah.” Ayo said, succinctly. There was a long, loaded pause, and then she took a deep breath. “I’m pretty sure you’re aware about the concept of doctor-patient confidentiality?”

 It was not where Cameron had expected her to go, so he found himself glancing at her, puzzled. “Yeah,” he replied, slowly. “But that’s not…” He sighed. “And that gets overridden by Maggie, doesn’t it? Who already knows, by the way. Those hacked medical records, and all.”

 “It gets overridden by Maggie only in the absolute extreme circumstances – when it affects this lab to an extent that I cannot keep silent. Most of the other times? Maggie won’t need to know anything.” She waited until Cameron, still puzzled, met her gaze. “And I’ll make those calls the way I always have, Cameron – by giving sensitivity and the benefit of the doubt to my patient, not an organisation as a whole. But.” She paused for a moment to let it sink in. “But then it has to go both ways – you have to tell me everything. And I mean everything – even the things those hacked medical files don’t say.”

 Cameron scoffed. “What makes you think my files aren’t comprehensive? The doctors who repeatedly scanned every last hair follicle on my body would be offended, Doctor.”

 Ayo raised an eyebrow at him in a very mom-ish way, putting her hands on her hips. “Uh-huh. I did my residency in a hospital where everybody and their mama was hiding something. I know what trying to hide things looks like. And you, I’m afraid, are terrible at it.” Cameron tried to splutter, but Ayo shook her head. “That’s the deal I’m offering. I’m on your side, but you have to tell me everything you want to hide from everybody else. Deal?”

 “You really don’t need to – You’re employed here to make sure the stitchers are okay.”

 “I’m here to make sure you don’t get dead,” Ayo shot back at him, and he couldn’t help but crack a smile at her words.

  He repeated those same words back to her three years later when Kirsten first appeared in their lab, and she laughed at him, bright and understanding and amused; solidified in their quiet understanding of one another. She’d kept her word and had been on his side – and by his side – through the exciting and the terrible. And so he couldn’t even really be mad at her the first time ever she broke their agreement in order to tell Maggie about 5ccs of Potassium methochloride. Especially not when she kept all his secrets through his explanation of the plan to stop his heart. And especially not when she was the second face he saw when he woke up in a haze, and her relief was tear-stained and tight-gripped and a word in a language he did not know that he was pretty sure was her cussing him out.

 “If you ever do that again our agreement is off,” she snarled at him, her hands on his face and her face still relieved.

 “W’sn’t I g’nna fire you?” Cameron slurred at her, mouth twitching.

 She shook her head at him with a scoff, and squeezed his hand tight.

 Linus sort-of found out next, which was surprising. Surprising, because Cameron hadn’t expected to make actual friends with those in the lab, let alone good friends and let alone so quickly. ‘Friends’ had always been a concept he’d mostly left behind in memories before age ten, to the point where meeting and befriending people as an adult was not actually half as doable as he yearned for it to be. He’d had a few years of actual practise by then, and as such he’d managed to make friendly acquaintances with a number at MIT, especially those in research with him. But he’d never really managed to make them friends rather than just friendly colleagues, and he’d subconsciously assumed that the stitchers lab occupants would follow the same pattern. He gelled with the people in the stitchers lab very quickly, and in the quiet moments in his head he wondered whether it was because they shared a secret and a grand purpose, whether it was circumstance, or whether he’d helped pick them not only based on their skills and brainpower that he frequently fanboyed over but also because some part of him knew they would connect with him personally, and he was just that sad, lonely, desperate little boy he used to be that would allow his own issues to influence something as important as his new work. But it was hard to let those thoughts run too rampant, because regardless of his own bias the members were brilliant, and did fit in spectacularly, and although they got friendly quickly, they all stayed on the friendly-colleagues level without moving into plain ‘friends’ or showing any real potential of heading that way.

 But then Linus came on the scene. And he had that same… aura about him that Cameron had miserably conceded existed around himself – that something that made them half a beat out of time with the rest of the world. And instead of making it more difficult for them to get along – instead of it making Cameron irritated at Linus’ naïveté or jerk-ness at times – it somehow just made them slip into friendly a lot quicker. And, before Cameron could even realise it was happening to try and analyse things, Linus and he were hanging out after work. For non-work-related things. And somehow, spontaneously, Linus became a friend. A real, flawed-annoying-exasperating-awesome friend with two PhDs, brain and personality similarities,  great taste in fandoms and an appreciation for good food and loyalty in equal measures.

 Still – Cameron had certainly not intended for Linus to ever pick up that anything at all was amiss. But they’d been standing in line to watch the premiere of Star Trek: Into Darkness, surrounded by a throng of similarly-excited people, and two in the crowd had begun a very lively debate that turned into a bit of a brawl. Their antics had knocked into the people standing in front of Linus and Cameron, and the two men had received sticky, freezing slushies to the chest. They waved off the apologies, and set about the seemingly impossible task of getting slightly less sticky and wet (“Man, now I know why the Glee guys hate these so much.” “You watch Glee?”).

 Cameron started peeling off the Kirk Tshirt he wore, intending to wad it up and just walk around in the plain long-sleeved he’d worn underneath it that was comparatively unscathed. But the Tshirt stuck to the shirt underneath, and when he pulled the top layer up, the bottom went with it. He was quick in yanking the long-sleeved down, but apparently not quick enough: Linus was blinking in the vicinity of his chest, frozen in his mopping movements, looking slightly bewildered.

 “Woah. Dude -?”

 “Eh. Old childhood thing,” Cameron dismissed, quickly. “Looks a lot worse than it was. You got any napkins left?”

 Linus let the conversation be changed, and Cameron breathed a sigh of relief. It was only much later, when Linus was sliding into his car after they’d spent hours excitedly talking about the movie and theorising about what was to come and nitpicking at the changes, that he turned to Cameron with an unsure, serious look on his face.

 “So… Uh… Earlier on…” Cameron let him squirm in embarrassment, hoping it would keep him from bringing it up again. “You said… childhood, right? As in… in the past?”

 “Yeah,” Cameron said. “Yeah, you know how things just happen when you’re little.”

 And that had been the end of it; Linus had been completely put at ease until years later, when he found out what the scar meant for certain after Cameron had been brought back and he overheard Ayo explaining the bare minimum to the doctors as Cameron was admitted to hospital. In his defence, he took the deception well – Cameron half-awoke to Linus threatening to kill him, but when he managed to fully peel his eyes open, Linus greeted him with gentle warmth and relief instead of true anger.  After some of the chaos of the next few days died down, Linus came over to his house and started citing various episodes, books, movies and comic volumes that warned against team members, friends or family members keeping important information from others.

 “Trust goes both ways, Cameron,” Linus said, seriously, and that cut Cameron deeper than anything else.

 Linus accepted his apology easily, and Cameron was relieved to find that Linus didn’t pick up hovering as a habit. His friend was a lot more hesitant about suggesting and going through with certain things than he had been, but he still trusted Cameron to know his limits, and trusted himself to be able to have Cameron’s back when the need arose. He did, however, join Kirsten and Camille in limiting his amount of daily caffeine intake, the traitor.

 Kirsten found out fourth, also in stages. Honestly, Cameron should have thought to lock his bedroom door. But he’d never had to before, and had thought the line of personal boundary he drew around himself was obvious enough to keep the three in his livingroom at bay. He’d let them in further than almost anybody else, and even they subconsciously toed the boundaries he’d spent years putting in place in the desperate hope that he could have friends that still left him to hold a piece of himself without them feeling they could reach out and take it from him.

 But he’d forgotten Kirsten wasn’t very good with boundaries. And he’d glanced up and found her in his doorway, startled by her blinking at the sight of him in a towel. And then he’d watched her eyes flick down to his chest and linger before purposefully following the scar back up to his face. He kept waiting for her to say something as he moved closer, but she did not and he found some relief in being able to shut the door in her face. Even she could understand that obvious gesture of keep out; too close.

 Kirsten was a master of not mentioning things, so he didn’t mention it, either. Just like that kiss. Just like how he felt about her – how every bit of him was gravitating toward her day by day like something being sucked into a vortex. He found himself wondering what she’d been thinking as she looked at him that night, and how she saw him every other time.

 And then he stops wondering for a while, because his crush before her ends in a hailstorm of bullets just feet away from where he’s crouching behind her closed front door.

 Kirsten was the fourth to find out, but the first he ever tells. He didn’t necessarily want to; she knew too much already, a large part of him argued. But, hell, he was pretty sure he was stupidly in love with her, and they were both dying, and she just didn’t want to accept that his very real version of the monster under the bed that he’d been carrying around with him since age ten was attaching itself to her, too. She didn’t seem to understand what it meant to have a life that was close friends with death. She didn’t seem to understand how you didn’t care when you died, but everybody else sure did, and being the cause of that much pain was enough of an incentive to live if nothing else was. And if she couldn’t – if the monster won – then, damnit, she had to minimise the damage she left in her wake. He didn’t particularly like Liam at all, but he could guess at how much Kirsten meant to the guy. And every human being deserved whatever balm to the pain of losing somebody as amazing, breath-taking, unique, lovely as Kirsten that they could get.

 He forgot that Kirsten tended to slay scary monsters on a daily basis. And if he loved her just a little bit more because she caused his constant, lurking companion to back a few more feet away from him. Well…

 He certainly loved her a bit more when the inevitable coddling didn’t come. She treated him exactly the same as she always had, even with the knowledge in her head, and the relief was a warm, tingly, gratifying rush every time she proved herself unconcerned with managing his life for him. And by the time the fretting did come – thanks to a damn fake psychic, of all things – he was too in love with her for her protectiveness to make him back a hasty retreat. Thankfully, Kirsten was also incredibly practical, and he could brush off her concerns without much effort at all. She trusted him to have her back; to come along and do his bit. To help.

 Kirsten was the fourth person to find out, the first person he told, and the first he’d willingly gamble his game of keep-away with the lurking monster on his back for. Because he trusted her with one of the deepest parts of himself and she still let him keep his freedom. And he’d be damned if he didn’t do everything in his power to let her see she could trust him, back.

 Camille found out fifth, in a process that was half Ayo, half Kirsten, and fittingly so. Fittingly, because he trusted her as much as Ayo and loved her as warmly as he did Kristen, just with a completely different kind of love.

 Cameron had slotted into place with her faster and easier than he had even with Linus. He had no real words to explain their relationship, and neither did she. So they simply shared a lot of looks and comfort in the language they both spoke so well and let whatever it was between them just be without poking at it with a stick and a magnifying glass. If she was some sort of undeserved gift from the universe to make up for lonely years then he was going to buy the gift horse an entire damn stable instead of looking anywhere near its mouth.

 So when, during one of her random visits to his apartment that had become frequent after their stakeout of the store across the road and his attached mi casa es su casa statement, Camille opened the wrong kitchen cupboard, he wasn’t as defensive or panicked or upset as he would have been had it been anybody else.

 “Uh… Cameron? Why do you have rat poison in your grocery cupboard?”

 “Hmm?” he said, distracted by the laptop in front of him.

 “There’s a bottle labelled ‘Warfarin’ in your handwriting in here.”

 That got his attention. And sunk his insides to the bottom of his shoes. “Oh, no, it won’t be in that cupboard,” he said, hurriedly, twisting around to find her standing in front of the tiny closet door in his kitchen cabinets that most people thought was just for show. She’d been distracted by the Warfarin, and hadn’t yet explored the other incriminating evidence in the tiny space. And he hoped to keep it that way. “It’s probably above the sink, Doll,” he added in his most nonchalant voice. “Did you look there?”

 But Camille would not be deterred. She smirked at him, amused and waiting for the funny story she thought she could smell, rattling the bottles of pills at him questioningly.

 “I got them when you started coming over,” he tried. “So your nemeses the mutant rats ever arrive we can poison them off quickly.”

 She gave him an unimpressed look, her lips twitching. “Har har.”

 For a moment, it looked like his gamble worked and he’d gotten away with it. But then he watched her put the Warfarin back and freeze as her eyes took in the other bottles and packets of pills stacked and neatly labelled by his hand in the tiny closet. He saw her shoulders clench, and assumed her hesitation was because her mind was whirling with questions and alarm and curiosity and worry and the war between asking and forcing herself to not stick her nose in his business. She took a deep breath, half turned to him, then seemed to change her mind and closed the cabinet slowly.

 Cameron sighed. How the hell was he supposed to work for a secret government agency if he couldn’t even keep one tiny, personal secret from a handful of people? He sucked at being a spy. But that didn’t mean he had to suck at being a friend. Taking a deep breath himself, Cameron set aside the laptop and made his way into the kitchen, nervousness and embarrassment churning bitter in his gut. But he couldn’t not give her answers; not somebody who fit that damn, sappy Bronte quote about souls with him so well. Not somebody who was like Ayo – full of compassion and warmth and heart for the world that made her see too much.

 He didn’t exactly have a script for that sort of thing, and so he simply buttoned down his shirt. She turned around, face hooded as she struggled with not asking about what she’d seen, and her eyes immediately popped in shock.

 “I had heart surgery when I was ten,” he said, and she swore a little breathlessly. He loved her a little bit when she tried not to stare. “Mostly sorted. Still need some meds, though.”

 “Cameron…” She searched his face, at a loss, the most complicated range of emotions in her eyes. And then she put one hand on his arm and squeezed and he found himself able to smile a little. “I…” He shook his head at her, pleading a little with his expression, and she huffed. “Why in your kitchen like that?”

 “More people tend to look in the bathroom cabinet,” he answered, honestly. “They’re much better hidden in an obvious place everybody thinks is just false panelling.”

 She eyed him for that, but didn’t say anything more. Not only that evening, but ever again; never brought it up even in passing or by a super obvious reference. But he was attuned enough to her to notice the way she looked at him a little harder, and stood a little closer at times, and seemed to count the number of coffees he had in a day. But those were little things, and he couldn’t begrudge Camille for caring because without that she wouldn’t be Camille. And when she did cross a line about it in his head, blurting for all the world the doubt that his heart could take being brought back – he was too busy to begrudge her for it. And he sort of got her back by dying on her a few moments later, so he couldn’t claim they were anything but even, really.

 (“I’m learning krav maga, now,” she told him out of the blue, weeks later.

 “I heard – that’s awesome.” The question was in his tone.

 “Yeah. Some of us possess this thing called self-preservation.” Her glare was somehow loving and angry and threatening all at once. “You pull a stunt anywhere near what you did in that lab that day ever again, Goodkin, and I will kick your ass. And then I’ll hack you so hard you’ll feel it for the rest of your life. Got me?”

 “Careful there, Agent. You’re almost getting scarier than Maggie.”

 “Good,” she said with a predator’s smile.)

 The rest of the lab found out as a collective not long after Camille. He knew they couldn’t have all found out at once, but he wasn’t exactly conscious (alive) to keep track of who noticed what when and who put the pieces together and who confirmed it for whom.  He was very sure they couldn’t have missed the scar or the way it took too many tries to get his heart started again.

 He felt a little bad for making them run around in a flat panic because their boss and usual stitch pilot had decided to off himself. But only a little bad. His whole world was being threatened – his life’s work, the potential to help and save so many, the colleagues that were his responsibility, the people he loved like family. You have to protect it, Jessica had told him of his heart. And he’d be damned if he didn’t do everything in his power to keep his heart safe and able to continue on. Even if it meant stopping his physical heart. Even if it meant he’d never get to see their shared dream for the programme take its first breath. Even if it meant giving up Kirsten.

 It all turned out fine, though, because they couldn’t really use the knowledge against him. For one, he was their boss, and not a close enough friend for them to have a say. For another, he’d come back fine. The monster had finally caught up with him, and Cameron had beaten it back. And how could he let anybody have a say on that area of his life when the thing he’d been taught to be terrified of almost all his life finally happened and… it didn’t kill him. Not forever. The apocalypse it had been painted to be turned into a mild inconvenience. And it didn’t matter who found out because Cameron was the one with the true knowledge, now. And he’d never be boxed in again.

 Without him knowing, Fisher was the last person to find out. While Kirsten sat at his hospital bedside, watching him sleep, Camille had stayed at Fisher’s side. And she was there when he woke up a few times during the night, and when he finally truly woke up the next morning, groggy but coherent. She gave him a vague sketch of events, but Fisher wasn’t a detective only in title.

 “What about Cameron? Did I get him out the way in time?”

 “Oh, you totally saved his ass,” Camille agreed. “He got knocked in the noggin a bit, but he didn’t even stay in here for a day.”

 They turned to other topics, and she’d almost gotten away with keeping Fisher in the dark about things that could potentially stress him out when Linus popped in and mentioned about stopping by Cameron’s room. Fisher turned on Camille with narrowed eyes.

 “Explain,” he said, tone booking no nonsense.

 And once she started, Camille couldn’t seem to stop. Yes, she’d held Cameron’s hand and seen him smile wonkily at her and heard his teasing and assurances. But she couldn’t stop seeing him, eyes wide and face grey, keeling into Kirsten. She couldn’t stop seeing the blurred outline of his still body while Ayo choked to Chelsea to call time of death. They’d nearly lost Fisher, but they’d come that much closer to losing Cameron. And her very heart rattled and moaned in her in exhausted horror at the very idea.

Fisher waited until she was finished, his mouth a grim line. Linus asked if he was in pain; if he should get the nurse, and Fisher shook his head jerkily.

 “That damn…” He exhaled sharply. “This is why we don’t let civilians…” He broke off again, jaw clenched. “’Protect my kids’, Maggie says,” he muttered, darkly, after a pause. “It would help if she told me I was also meant to protect them from themselves.”

 “He’s okay, though,” Linus tried desperately to reassure.

 Fisher just gave him a stony look. “My dad had one of those ops,” he said, quietly. “I know what sorts of long-term things go along with the cure. Specifically, I know how easily those people bleed. And don’t stop bleeding because of blood thinners. And that damn kid has been in all sorts of shit. Without a damn vest.”

 Camille slipped her hand into Fisher’s. “Hey, there. You’re not supposed to get worked up.” She squeezed gently. “Besides; I thought he wasn’t your friend?” she teased, gently.

 Fisher snorted, closed his eyes for a minute and sighed. “Hey, do me a favour and call Kirsten here,” he said to Linus. “I need to talk to her – before something else happens.”

 Linus nodded and patted Fisher’s feet. “Take it easy, man, okay? You gotta get better. And stop me from killing Cameron, which I now want to do all over again.”

This earned her a little glance over the shoulder, but nothing much more. For the love of Dracula rolled in a doormat – why did she like this insufferable blonde, again?

“Afternoon, Kirsten. Camille.” Ayo smiled up from the forms she was filling in, completely oblivious to the fact that Kirsten was acting like a child instead of a mature, put-together twenty-something who just happened to need some food. Camille almost wished she was allowed to act this irrational and moody from skipping a meal. Her childhood would have been damn interesting, if that had been the case. “Feeding time, Kirsten?”

“Yes,” Camille answered empathetically. “Holy hell, yes.”

“Don’t say that rather delightful oxymoron be heard by too many,” Ayo chuckled, flipping through her papers. “You’re in luck; one of yours is open right at this very second.” She scrawled something down. “Bed four.”

Kirsten thanked her shortly and started down the hallway of curtained-off beds. Camille sighed and sank into a waiting chair, pulling out her phone in anticipation of the boredom. But she hadn’t even loaded any of her new emails when Kirsten came striding back. One look at her friend’s face, and Camille straightened from her slouch – she didn’t need to have seen through Kirsten’s eyes to know who was waiting behind the curtain.

“Where’s Ayo? I want somebody else.”

“She walked off. Looked important.” Camille stood hesitantly and put a hand on Kirsten’s arm. “Hey. Talk to me. You seemed fine with him on Monday.”

“That wasn’t this,” Kirsten said, eyebrows furrowed and shoulders tense. “You know what happens when…” She twisted her hands. “I’m with Liam!” she snapped hotly.

Camille took a deep breath so her usual views on Kirsten’s boyfriend would not leave her mouth and make the situation tenser than it actually was. “Last time I checked, feeding off of somebody doesn’t count as cheating.” Kirsten looked at her with big, conflicted eyes, her expression saying what her words could not. “He’s a good guy,” Camille defended. “He would never do – ”

“Of course not. But I… but…”

“I can come with?”

Kirsten pulled a face. “It squicks you out, watching.”

“It’s not the best entertainment ever, no, but if you need me there to… mediate then… Hey, who knows; I might get a front-row seat even if I don’t come. You know flashes tend to happen when you’re stressed.”

“Yeah.” Kirsten cleared her throat, suddenly looking shy. “Yeah. Would you…? I mean…?”

“I’m the best wingwoman ever. And don’t you forget it. Go on. Pale And Ready To Bale is not a good look on you.”

Kirsten gave her a small smile and squeezed her hand, and Camille couldn’t bring herself to feel any irritation or exasperation at having to follow her friend to the fourth curtained-off bed. There was a gap in the curtains, and through it Camille saw the familiar unruly mop of brown curls. The rest of his face was, predictably, buried in his tablet, fingers swiping furiously as he held the screen too close to his face.

“Hell, Goodkin. Hasn’t anybody told the human world about bifocal contact lenses, yet?” Camille said, breezing her way into the cubical.

She laughed, then; not at his flailing jump of surprise, but at the way his face lit up with delight when he saw Camille and Kirsten. She’d thought, in the beginning, that it was just because one had to be somebody who found a very particular genre of things exciting and exhilarating in order to willingly volunteer to be a walking, talking buffet. She still mentally apologised, on occasion, for pegging him as somebody who was joyous to see them just because of what they could give him.

“Ah, hark, the arrival of sweet Melétē  and Mnḗmē.”

The dork probably even pronounced the names of the two muses in the correct Latin. “Does that make you the muse of song? You gonna sing our praises?” she teased back.

“Not after that I’m not: now I’m not amused,” Cameron grinned and then held up his hand for a high five.

Camille glared. “No. That was terrible. You deserve nothing for that crack.”

Cameron’s face fell into a puppydog pout for a moment before he focused on Kirsten. The expression turned so warm, Camille had to glance at the blonde to see what affect it was having on her.

“Evening, Stretch.”

“Technically, for us it’s mid-morning,” she deadpanned.

But Camille could see her resolve to be aloof and cool already cracking under his warmth. Neither Kirsten nor her, already pegged as ice queens by their peers since high school and earning more of said reputation as they mowed through college together, had been able to stand up to the passionate, nerdy genuineness that was Cameron Goodkin. The plan had been to go to the lab the Academy had set up for him and his other human scientists and only do the bare minimum for the study so that Maggie and Turner wouldn’t make their lives hell, making the lives of the humans hell in the process. They had, after all, enough problems to wade through without being the sudden labrats of a feeder who had gone in to have his memories wiped at the end of his year of service and had ended up producing enough notes and theories that they set him up, memories intact, in the unused sub-sub-sub-basement of the Academy.

They hadn’t expected to be wowed by his ‘little human science toys’, or by the theories he was slowly refining about Spirit magic. But the more they listened and watched and let themselves be part of the discoveries he was pioneering, the more they understood why people as ruthless and as dogged as Maggie and Turner had been won over by one scrawny, stubborn human in his mid-twenties.

A scrawny, stubborn human who wore geek Tshirts under his multitude of plaid shirts, Camille was reminded as he removed the plaid monstrosity from one arm. She narrowed her eyes, wondering if she could convince him to take it off all the way so she could bin it – he had a hundred others to replace it with, anyway – but then caught Kirsten’s eye, saw the unspoken message in the gaze, and dutifully turned to face the other way, pretending to be very busy on her phone. She could almost feel Cameron shooting her a curious look; she wasn’t actually allowed to be around when the feeding took place and had therefore never shown up with Kirsten before. But his attention only focused on her for a few moments.

Not that she could blame him – there were all sorts of reasons  a woman with razor-sharp fangs biting you on the arm was a lot more attention-grabbing than the back of somebody seemingly scrolling through Facebook.

She was glad, not for the first time, that slipping into Kirsten’s head naturally meant only that she saw what the blonde was seeing, but didn’t necessarily feel what Kirsten was feeling. It was weird enough having her view suddenly distorted – to suddenly be herself but looking through somebody else’s brain – without having emotions that weren’t hers shoved into her chest. Unfortunately, Cameron’s little machines sometimes had the latter effect. He was getting better at controlling it, but Camille could still remember very, very clearly the first time Kirsten went under and Camille was suddenly not only feeling weakened by Kirsten’s use of Spirit but was also feeling emotions that weren’t hers. They weren’t Kirsten’s, either, and being forced to feel a double whammy of fake emotions still invaded her dreams, sometimes. It had been intense; the foreign emotions had been stronger than her own, drowning out her panic and fear and dislike and making her almost react the same way Kirsten had when Cameron had pulled her out, gasping and disorientated.

It was a good thing weakness had kept her slumped in her chair; she wasn’t sure what anybody would have done if both her and Kirsten had grabbed Cameron roughly and kissed him passionately.

He had dismissed it as magic-science residue the one whole time he’d spoken about it, gently trying to hand Kirsten some of her pride and control back. But one didn’t simply forget. Especially not when the same not-boyfriend person you’d kissed was also under your mouth giving you the blood your entire body craved while he gasped in automatic reaction to the euphoria from your saliva. And, no, Camille couldn’t fault him for that little gasp; she’d been there. She understood.

So, as soon as Kirsten let go, Camille jumped in to be the diversion Kirsten had brought her along to be, calling his attention back to her by whatever means necessary so Kirsten could put her walls back together and pretend it was just another feeding with just another human, and that those not-hers emotions that Camille had also been forced to feel were the only reasons she’d kissed Cameron Goodkin. She diverted even as they both beat a hasty retreat, too fast for him to even get a word in edgeways until they were already closing the curtain.

“See you tomorrow morning! Err… evening?”

Kirsten took a deep breath and shut her eyes. Camille patted her on the shoulder in consolation.

***

Camille missed what happened to start the argument, as her entire concentration was being taken up by Linus excitedly babbling about the new toys they’d installed into the lab and were about to use. It seemed it didn’t matter how many times Camille told him that despite her brief upbringing in the human world, their worlds were now enough apart he was speaking a foreign language to her; Linus would insist on trying to impress her or engage her in the things that were exciting him every time he had a spare moment. Camille didn’t actually mind it, either; Linus was naïve in ways that were dear and amusing, and there was a genuineness and steadfastness to him that Camille felt drawn to. So much so that she’d wondered a few times whether the fact that Linus had made Cameron’s lieutenant even in the deepest dungeon of a vampire college was more telling of the likeness that connected the two scientists than of Linus’ curiosity, passion to pioneer the unknown and geek-streak that ran as wide as the Grand Canyon.

It was, unfortunately, that naivety and that grand chasm that also made him incredibly prone to putting his foot in it. And as much as he was a great guy most of the time, there were also times Camille had to remind herself that a dhampir blow could easily kill a human, so slapping him was not quite the way to go despite what her irritation was telling her.

“Linus,” she tried to interrupt, gritting her teeth to hold in the caustic, acid words she didn’t want to burn him with. “Look, I appreciate the grand tour of the nerd-dom but I – ”

His face disappeared as the now-familiar slight swooping sensation grabbed Camille behind her eyes and pulled. One blink later, and she was staring at Cameron’s face, level with hers for once. And that wasn’t the only difference; the usual spark and excitement were gone from his eyes and face, and he looked tense and wary and a little upset. Camille shook her head in an attempt to break away from Kirsten’s mind, succeeding a split second before Kirsten started yelling, filling Camille in on erupting argument anyway.

“What are you actually doing here?” Kirsten snapped, furiously. “And don’t give me the same old crap you spun Maggie. Why are you here doing this? What’s the outcome, Cameron? What’s the game plan? Or did you really just not outgrow fantasy so much you have to self-insert yourself into escapism like this?”

Linus whispered ouch behind Camille, but Cameron only flinched a little. “My intentions? They’re to make sure you don’t end up like virtually everybody else with your element, Kirsten. They’re to find a way – some way – to stop Spirit turning you insane. A way that doesn’t include dumping all of that darkness and insanity and negative life-force drainage on your bond-mate.”

“Hey, thanks for that bit, by the way,” Camille chirped loudly, hoping to break the intense stare-off. But neither of them looked at her. “The whole Mad Hatter vibe isn’t really my thing, you know? I have no idea about ravens or writing desks.”

“My job is to make sure you and Camille are safe,” Cameron continued, fingers flexing in and out of fists as he stared at Kirsten.

“By ‘keeping me safe’ you mean blocking my magic,” Kirsten accused.

“What? No, I – ”

“That’s what everybody else wanted. One little pill, and I can stop everything from happening to me. I can no longer be a danger to anybody. But I’ll have this thing inside me, forced back, that’s there but that isn’t allowed to breathe. That’s what you want to do to me.”

“Kirsten.” Cameron took a step forward and put his hands on her shoulders. She startled, but, to Camille’s surprise, did not fight her way out of his hold. Not that she would need to fight very hard; at her flinch, Cameron loosened his hold so much his fingers barely brushed against her. “I don’t want to supress your powers, okay? I’m not letting that pill anywhere near you unless it is literally that or your life. And I won’t let that scenario happen.” Kirsten stared at him with wide eyes for a moment before her mouth twisted.

“You do want to take away some of my ability, though. I heard you. You want to make sure I can no longer see ghosts.”

Cameron sighed and scrubbed at his face with one hand. “Cupcake, I…” His eyes searched hers for a long moment. “There’s no evidence the ghosts are real. Only you can see them. It could just be that what you think are real spirits back from the dead are actually just…”

“The start of insanity.” Her voice was cool, brittle and dangerous. “Just because you can’t see them –”

“I know,” Cameron interjected quickly. “I know, Stretch. Maybe it’s because I don’t have your magic. But… I’m not going to take that chance. I’m not going to ignore the possibility that the ghosts aren’t magic but are some sort of way the magic is trying to hurt you.” He was quiet for a long beat. “Even if that means working toward a world where you won’t be able to see your mom again.” She stepped back from his remaining hand on her shoulder, and Cameron let it fall limply to his side. Camille watched them watch each other for a long moment, noting how the whole lab was quiet and waiting. “Are we going to do this?”

Kirsten glanced at Camille, and the brunette gave her her best winning, confident, affectionate smile. “We’re going to do this. But.” She turned and half-glared at Cameron, fierce and unrelenting. “Promise me you will give as much weighting to the theory that the ghosts are real. Promise me you’ll let me try and see the dead instead of erring on the side of caution; promise you’ll take risks where my mom is concerned.”

“Yeah,” Cameron said, and his tone of voice alerted Camille at once to what had happened. “I promise. Of course.”

Kirsten turned and marched briskly toward Camille, pulling up her hair so it wouldn’t get in the way as she walked. Linus slunk off as she approached, and Camille crossed her arms and raised an accusing eyebrow at her best friend.

“What?” Kirsten asked.

“It holds a lot more weight when you’re not compelling the man to make the promise you want him to make,” Camille pointed out. “I mean, are you not usually the one going on at me about trust and shit?”

“I had to be sure,” Kirsten shrugged, but she wasn’t looking at Camille as she said it.

“One day he’ll realise you’re manipulating him. And somehow I don’t think he’ll like it very much.”

“He’ll have to learn to deal,” Kirsten said, stubbornly unrepentant.

Camille rolled her eyes but let it go, flopping in her usual seat for the experiment. To her joy she found the boys had finally listened to her suggestions and bought the good chocolate, and she started on it before Cameron had finished making all the necessary checks.

“That’s for stabilising your blood sugar afterwards,” Cameron said when he caught sight of her. His grin was pure exasperated fondness, and Camille saluted him with the chocolate bar.

“Giving it a head start,” she said around a full mouth, and he rolled his eyes.

“Alright, team, let’s glue her in and see – ”

“Glue her in?” Camille interrupted, incredulous eyebrow raised.

“Well, somebody objected rather loudly to the ‘welding’ metaphor last time,” he said, his gaze on Camille pointed.

“Yeah, well ‘gluing’ sounds just as stupid.”

“Knitting her in?” Linus suggested from his seat.

“What, am I being transformed into an old woman’s blanket?” Kirsten scoffed.

“Pinning her in,” somebody else called from the side of the lab.

“We’ve been over why that one will not happen,” Cameron shot back. “Guys, we’re wasting time arguing about something that doesn’t even – ”

“Folding her in?”

“That one’s not bad. Baking metaphor. What do you think, Cupcake?” A grin twitched at his mouth.

“I will end you,” Kirsten said, very calmly.

“Yeah, she’s still cookie dough. Not done baking yet.” It slipped out before Camille could think; before she could remember that perhaps other people in the room had watched enough vampire cult classics to get the reference. Cameron gave her the oddest look; a mixture of pride at her taking up the referencing torch, confusion about whether it was a relevant reference or just one made because of baking, and a surprised-aching-hope that it did apply to Kirsten; that she wasn’t as eternally unreachable as he thought. “Ugh.” She had to say something to cover up her slip. “Just use the comparatively not-awful one from last week.”

It worked; his face scrunched up as he thought back. “Stitch her in?”

“We’ll use the least gag-worthy while we find something better,” Camille agreed.

Cameron shrugged. “Stitching it is. Alright, everybody. Get ready – on my mark – ”

They’d run the simulation to map Kirsten’s powers and their effects enough times for Camille to no longer be caught off guard by the second-hand emotions and visions. So it didn’t take her long to realise that something was different, this time; something was wrong. It was like each of her eyes was pressed to a different peephole, and she was seeing two separate scenes unfolding while her brain struggled to keep up. On the one hand, there was the usual montage straight from Kirsten’s head into hers – flashes of Kirsten’s life, her father, the sister who had disappeared years ago. But she was also seeing faces that were jarringly familiar to her that Kirsten would never recognise. Kirsten had, after all, come after Camille’s parents had left without a word.

The pain of reliving her abandonment increased and decreased as her mind struggled to deal with two completely different flashbacks at the same time, dialling back enough that it was a distant sort of hurt and then slamming into her as fresh and gutting as it had been on the day they’d left her.

“Camille?”

Kirsten’s memories disappeared abruptly, and suddenly her own were given the spotlight. They slammed into her with such a force she lost whatever small grip on the reality of the lab around her she’d held on to. There were the Moroi, all looking at her scornfully like a piece of trash under a microscope, discussing in loud voices whether she was too tainted to be reformed into a proper guardian, given the way she’d been brought up in the human world. The feeling of being let in only because they were so desperate for dhampir clung to her like a scar that would twinge whenever somebody brushed up against it. There was Theo, pushing her harder and harder despite fatigue and injuries, all under the guise of making her better and stronger and worth something.

“What’s happening to - ?”

“Is that really all you’ve got, Millie? And yet they let you join the fancy place and not me. Maybe it’s cause most of the higher ups are dirty old men. Is that how you – “

“Cami-!”

“Millie, Millie, Millie! Get up!”

There was smoke and fire of younger years; her home was on fire, and she couldn’t get out. And that transformed to her lying on an expanse of nothing, staring at blurry stars, hearing Kirsten screaming for her as she felt herself dying. Kirsten had saved her, hadn’t she? But nobody was coming now. She was dying. She couldn’t breathe.

“What’s wrong with her? What’s happening?”

“Dude, she’s totally not breathing at all. Her heartra – ”

“Don’t! Kirsten, hey! You can’t heal her! You’ll only make it worse when the backlash of using your powers falls on her! Just… let me… Camille. Hey, Pumpkin, hey.”

She hadn’t made everything right. She hadn’t proven herself. And who was going to look after Kirsten, now? Stinger was still out there. The Strigoi were amassing an army. Kirsten hadn’t even declared a magic yet. Damn, everything was fading so fast. What a shitty way to die. What a –

The scene around her jolted and scattered, confused and suddenly not as real as she’d first thought. Something was moving her arms; she could feel them being dragged forward and positioned. But her arms were limp at her sides… weren’t they? Sensation flared into her fingers; a drumming. A steady beat she didn’t really want to focus on, but that was there and attention-grabbing anyway. And then, beneath her other hand, the whoosh of air. Like a breeze passing over the earth, only more deliberate. More like –

Breath. Something was breathing right under her hand.

“Camille, sweetheart, I need you to focus on me, right now. Whatever’s going on in your head isn’t the most important thing right at this moment, okay? You’re not breathing properly and your body’s freaking out and that’s probably making everything feel very, very shitty.”

Yeah. Yeah, it was. She was dying.

“I need you to focus on what’s under your hands, okay? Use those enhanced senses, Supergirl. And then make your breathing and your heart match what you feel. You can do it. Just focus.”

Cameron. The voice was Cameron’s. She knew him. And she’d met him after the night she’d died. Which meant…

A deep inhalation rumbled under her fingers, and she followed its example, gasping in air. It felt magnificent. Cameron continued to murmur things to her – encouragement, instructions, nonsense pet names so she wouldn’t get lost again – and she clung to his wrist with one hand, letting his pulse thrum through her as a metronome for the galloping that was going on inside her chest. Her other hand scrambled for purchase against his chest, slipping up and down the weird-feeling bumps that the buttons on his flannel made.

Eventually, she was able to breathe properly again. Eventually, her heart slowed to just-above-normal; enough to make her head clear. Enough for her to open her eyes. She was on the floor of the lab, and Kirsten and Cameron were both crouched in front of her, looking worried. Kirsten didn’t hug, much, but Camille received an armful of blonde almost as soon as she’d proven she was all there and not dying, and Camille let go of Cameron to hug her back. She had to work incredibly hard to keep the tears from breaking free.

“I’m going to go and call Ayo,” Cameron said, and she saw him stand out of the corner of her eye. “Just relax until she’s here to take a look, okay?”

Camille shut her eyes, tightly, and wished she could shake off the remaining ghosts that clung to her. Something else was niggling at her, though; some inconsistency her over-stimulated brain needed to pick apart and make sense of. There was something off about what had just happened, and she needed to reconcile the truth with the lie her brain had been telling her. But what was the lie?

Cameron returned, and Camille realised at once that he was wearing only a plain Tshirt. His flannel, she realised, had been taken off and thrown over his chair when they’d first come in. So then… why the hell had she been feeling button bumps under her fingers?

“You okay?” Kirsten asked her as she frowned.

“Yeah, I… yeah. Just something I’ll need to figure out, later.”

But later was manic. And then the days wore on, and she forgot, for a long time, about the mystery her adrenalin-fuelled brain had insisted was so important back then.

***

They’d learned how to delay Camille being pulled under into Kirsten’s mind, and she was happily munching on chocolate as she waited and the scientists mapped Kirsten’s brain activity when the noise started and made her instantly alert.

“What is that?” she asked, already getting to her feet.

“What?” Cameron said, distracted.

“That sound. It’s like – ”

Strigoi, Camille thought a moment later, really had to stop trying to emulate bad movies. The three who barrelled their way into the lab did so with a Hollywood flair, and they did so snarling like animals, brandishing crude weapons and – honest to gosh – chuckling evilly. It was so over-the-top that everybody else in the lab stopped to stare for a good few seconds, nonplussed and not yet as afraid as they should be.

And then the battle started.

“Get Kirsten out!” Cameron yelled at Camille, and she didn’t have enough breath to spare to shoot a no duh, genius his way.

She knew she had to pull the Moroi from the experiment and hustle her to safety – but knowing she had to do it and being able to fend off three Strigoi who had weapons when she only had her fists and her feet was an entirely different ballgame. Her training and her desperation and her knowledge of the lab’s layout meant Camille managed to kill one who was just about to turn Kirsten into dinner. But snapping his was mostly a fluke, and Camille knew it. She was no match for two oldish seeming Strigoi, and the best plan was to run the hell out of there. The other two, who had been mostly hanging back, now advanced as a team.

Cameron yelling and throwing something on fire at them was only a momentary distraction; the one nearest him snarled, easily dodged the fireball and then leapt forward in a streak of speed Camille barely followed and Cameron had no chance of tracking. Said Strigoi flipped Cameron’s desk at the human, knocking him clear across the floor and then pinning him beneath the metal.

“Cameron! Cam!” No answer; no movement. Camille’s heart constricted in pain and worry.

At the very least, the loss of Cameron’s computers made Kirsten start to rouse. But it was too little, too late: the most it would do was allow Kirsten to wake up to her best friend being murdered – or worse, turned – just before she got her own blood drained from her body. But to hell with them if they thought they could take Camille down without a damn good fight. They laughed at her as they advanced, deliberately slowly and completely at ease.

She slammed one in the face, breaking her nose, but her partner caught Camille around the throat and squeezed and –

The lab lit up in bright, glaring light. Camille flinched at the sudden brightness, confused brain skittering for the source. Kirsten, mostly awake, hissed and tried to get under cover. The Strigoi burst into flames. With a yelp of surprise, Camille freed herself from the burning, horrifically-shrieking attackers, grabbed Kirsten’s hand, and pulled her out of the wide circle of sunlight. Sunlight. In the lab. Camille looked wildly up and saw a trapdoor in the ceiling had been rolled back to reveal what looked to be a mirror of some sort that was reflecting the sunrise down into the lab. Another look around and she found Cameron, pale and shaky, clinging to a lever in the wall. He was watching the burning Strigoi with wide, horrified eyes, and as Camille watched he slid weakly down the wall and landed in a heap on the floor.

“What the hell?” Kirsten breathed shakily.

It was a sentiment taken up by Maggie and the senior dhampir trainer, Fisher, when they barrelled into the lab a few moments later. Linus babbled a slightly-coherent explanation, and Maggie took charge. Her first point of call was getting Fisher to escort Kirsten far away. Kirsten, however, resisted, eying a still-crumpled, very obviously in pain Cameron on the floor.

“Go, go – I got him,” Camille assured.

Kirsten squeezed her shoulder, once, and then allowed herself to be led off. Camille scampered to Cameron’s side, relieved when she didn’t see or smell much blood.

“Now was not the greatest time to try we wrestling,” Camille joked, hands trying to figure out what was wrong.

Cameron blinked at her, eyes glazed and face uncomprehending. “What wrestling?”

“We? The… the famous wrestling crap on TV where they hit each other with chairs?”

That startled an almost-laugh from Cameron, which led to a groan. “WWE. It’s just my leg, I think,” he added in response to Camille’s prodding.

She made her touch to said leg as gentle as possible, but he still cried out. “Okay, shit, sorry.” He tried to wave her off, still panting in pain. She glanced back to his overturned desk, and then measured the distance from it to where they currently were sitting under the lever. “And yet, you still came all the way over here.”

“Crawled, mostly,” he explained through gritted teeth. “Had to get to the…”

“That was a really nifty thing to put in this lab,” she said, glancing again at the sunlight still streaming in. “Was that your idea?”

“Was inspired by a recent Mummy rewatch.” Camille gave him a blank look. “The Mummy? Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz? ‘No harm ever came from reading a book’?” He shook his head. “Add that to the list of things I have to… introduce… you… to.” He panted the last few words, face now looking a little green.

“Right. Ayo time. Don’t look at me like that; I’m strong af. I can carry your skinny butt up there. I’ll even do it bridal style if it wouldn’t hurt you more.”

He tried to smile for her, but it just came out a grimace. And the facial expressions only got worse from then on – even though Camille tried to be careful as she lifted him to his feet, the movement still jarred him. And as much as most of his weight was on her, hopping about was not a viable option. Luckily, Linus zoomed to their side and took Cameron’s other arm around his shoulders. They had to adjust their positions a few times before they got the right balance that meant Linus wasn’t banging into Cameron’s injured leg as they walked, but eventually they were able to make their slow ascent to Ayo’s capable hands.

Camille was looked over by another medical assistant and then sent to sit with Kirsten, who was actually one of the least badly hurt or drained by the whole fiasco. They were sent back to their dorm early, with Fisher posted outside the door just in case, and so Camille only got one more glance at Cameron that day. Ayo had fitted him with a leg brace and was busy explaining the correct use of crutches to him as Camille passed.

They both made a beeline for the lab as soon as possible the next day, and found that it mostly looked normal, except for some scorch marks on the floor that made an odd shudder run through Camille’s insides. Cameron’s workspace was also visibly stuck back together, with cobbled parts of other computer and technologies to replace bits of his that had obviously not made it out of the battle. Cameron himself looked a little cobbled together, as though held in place only by tenuous sticky tape. He was shockingly pale, and looked smaller than usual with the crutch and the leg brace.

“Didn’t Ayo give you two of those?” Camille frowned, watching him painfully limp around his table, putting too much weight on the injured leg for her liking.

Cameron waved a vague hand. “I can’t have both my hands occupied,” he said, firmly. “I need to get this up and running again.”

Camille and Kirsten shared a glance. “Cameron,” Kirsten started, doubtfully.

“I’m fine,” he snapped, still not looking at them. “Just… I’m fine. I can still do this.”

“Nobody said you couldn’t,” Kirsten tried, gently. “But we just…”

“Hand me that wrench, please?” Cameron said, voice like steel, and the women shared another glance and a sigh.

“Okay,” Camille said, dubiously. “But I’m going to laugh if you fall on your ass in front of me.”

She didn’t get to show that the statement had been all talk; Cameron didn’t fall. But he did get increasingly paler as the morning wore on, and before long his hands were trembling in pain and his leg was barely supporting him even with the help of the crutch. Kirsten and Camille had both retired to a corner of a lab with their library books, content to just be around the people they now considered as friends as they put their lab back together, helping where they could. But when Cameron had to suddenly grip the table to keep from collapsing, Kirsten shut her book with a snap and marched toward him, Camille hot on her heels.

“Okay, you’re done doing this.” She took him by both of the shoulders and supported him upwards while Camille positioned the chair behind him. “Sit.”

“I don’t need to -!”

“Cameron. Please sit.” Kirsten’s voice and demeanour changed, but for once Camille couldn’t find it in herself to call her friend out for using compulsion. “Please, just take a break, okay? And, look; this chair has wheels. You can use it to wheel around the lab.”

“I…” Cameron said, blinking at her.

“It’s more convenient,” Kirsten promised, lowering him into the chair. “You’ll get a lot more done this way.”

“Yeah, okay,” Cameron agreed.

“Or,” Kirsten said, suddenly eager and kneeling before him. “Or – I could heal that for you. I could make it better right now.”

“Wh-? No! No, no, Kirsten!” He yelped a little, involuntarily, as he twisted away from her in alarm. “Stretch!”

“What?” Kirsten folded her arms, face steely. “That’s what I was meant to do with this element, Cameron. That’s what I’m good at.”

“Animals – no mammals yet, I’ll add. And one or two dhampir and Moroi. No humans. There are no records of human healing anywhere. We have no idea what that would do to you or Camille.”

“Oh, man, that’s flimsy bs,” Camille argued. “If she can heal animals, she can do a human.”

“There’s no scientific proof,” Cameron stressed, glaring at both of them.

“Isn’t that what an experiment is meant to bring to light?” Kirsten argued back.

Cameron shook his head, mouth in a tight line. “I’m not leaping that far into the unknown. I will not risk you! Either of you!”

“It’s not a risk – ”

“Everything we do in here is a risk! Everything! Just because we’ve spent hours running all the variables doesn’t mean we’re not wrong,” Cameron snapped. “That’s why we take it further and further by tiny, calculated, acceptable steps. We do not jump all the way to unknown species healing when most of the lab isn’t even paying attention to stats!”

“Cameron,” Kirsten soothed, placing a hand on his arm and leaning a little closer. “I just want – ”

He clapped his hands over his ears and shut his eyes, tight. “You’re not going to compel me to do this!” Camille and Kirsten both drew back a little, surprised that he knew what compulsion looked like. Now that made a few past interactions very interesting. “You don’t…” He sighed, used his hands to scrub through his hair wildly, and then ran them both down his face. “You’re not the first Moroi down here, Kirsten.”

“What?”

“You’re not our first experimentation. Maggie… she always had her eye on you, but her and Turner wanted to advance on you slowly so you didn’t run off. In the meantime, there was a Spirit wielder who was… already in deep. Her name was Marta. She was… the hallucinations had already started and we… we were reckless and went too fast and…”

“And what?” Kirsten asked, very quietly. Camille kneeled before them, her hand on Cameron’s good knee, her heart pounding uncomfortably. She thought she knew where his story was going, and empathy ached through her as old wounds threatened to reopen.

“She turned herself Strigoi,” Cameron said, flatly. “Before we had the failsafe in the lab” – he motioned to the lever – “and before we knew… Turner killed her. Burned her alive.” He stared at them in turn, eyes haunted but shoulders determined. “We don’t take risks that big,” he stressed, but his voice was cracked instead of authoritative.

They let him get back to fixing his lab, after that, but both of them stayed close. Camille, in particular, abandoned the pretence that she was doing work very early and went to help him so he didn’t have to rise from the chair when his attempts to do so ended in him in pain and humiliation, unable to rise. Kirsten eventually had to go to a class, but Camille bunked hers after a silent conversation with her best friend; gazes that promised she’d look out for the human that had inexplicably become special to them.

She brought him coffee, eventually, and then reclined in a non-wheelie seat beside him, bouncing his crutch up and down while he watched.

“If I had stayed in the human world,” she said, suddenly, “If they hadn’t come to find me, I mean. I probably would have studied something to do with brains in a human university.” Where she would have found the money, she didn’t know. But this was a pipe dream; she could forget how much of nothing she’d always had.

“Yeah? Any field you like in particular?”

She shrugged. “I wasn’t old enough to extensively research. I just… what you’re doing here; trying to help by understanding the brain…” She nodded, unable to put it into words. His hand squeezed hers. “What about you, Goodkin? Were brains your first love?”

“Yes and no,” he said, making a hand wobble in the air. “I mean, except for the months I was convinced I was going to build the world’s first time machine, neuro-something has always been my path. My mom’s a neurosurgeon. Brain doctor.”

“But you went for PhD instead of MD,” Camille said.

Cameron sighed, a little. “Medical doctors… Look, I’ve known a lot of them throughout my life. All sorts of specialisations, all sorts of temperaments. And they… They’re great. They do great things. But they’re always looking at problems. They’re always trying to find solutions; the body is just a means to an end, really. I don’t… I didn’t want to see humans like that; to look at what was wrong and try and be the godlike one who fixes it. I just want to… to… wonder at it.”

“You’re such a nerd,” Camille said, fondly, her chest warm.

“No, no, but like…” Cameron leaned forward as much as he could, eyes alight and hands gesturing. “You and Kirsten – you’re not human, but there’s the same wonder in how you work. How your brains work. How your minds by themselves are… beautiful. Camille, I know you didn’t really look at your brain scans but… oh, man, Sweetheart, your mind is magnificent. And then you factor in how it links to Kirsten’s! And on top of all of that is the fact that you are behind all those neurons and that amazingness.” He was grinning at her; still too pale, but suddenly alight from the inside in a way she’d never seen him. “Not just a scientifically beautiful working organ; not just scientifically fascinating but also… there’s a person behind it all. And that person is amazing. You and Kirsten… you’re both so…” He gestured, big, like he had no words.

And Camille stared at that gesture, watching as it made something big and warm start in her chest. Something fragile she didn’t want to be there, because she knew how much it hurt when it was broken and proved untrue. But as much as she tried to stay realistic – as much as she reminded herself that nobody saw her as worth anything more than what she could do for them and be used for – the delight and warmth in Cameron’s eyes demolished her walls. The warmth and aching pleasure of being loved filled her veins and lay there, singing, while she sat silent and gaping and unable to breathe properly in a good way.

“I’m so glad you two were the ones who became part of this,” Cameron said, firmly, and Camille couldn’t give in to the desire to reach across and hug him close.

***

There was something off about the way Cameron was leaning on his crutch when they arrived that day, but he made sure there was no opportunity to ask more than once if he was okay. His leg had been slowly healing – mostly because, Camille was sure, she and Kirsten had been forcing him to take it easy – and he’d even been medically cleared to use only one crutch a few days ago. So the first explanation Camille jumped to was that he’d done too much and injured it more; she and Kirsten shared a few rolled eyes and raised eyebrows, and then they went to work on the pre-testing.

Linus had just finished walking them through the new simulation when Cameron, on view behind them, suddenly staggered and half-fell into his chair. The women exchanged a look, let an oblivious Linus finish, and then marched up to Cameron to find out how they could help.

“We’re going to round up the others and get coffee,” Linus called from the doorway. “Orders?”

Cameron shook his head, and the other two also declined, watching while Linus led the only other occupant of the lab out. Alone with just Cameron and determined to use that to their advantage, they rounded on him.

“You guys should get the caffeine,” Cameron said, not meeting their eyes.

“You should tell us what’s wrong,” Camille countered. “What did you do to your leg?”

“Nothing. It’s not the leg. I’m fine.”

Kirsten gently lifted his hand by the wrist, displaying his shaking hand as evidence. “Cameron.” Her voice was worried but incredibly firm. “What is going-?” Camille saw her suddenly jerk in surprise, saw her eyes widen, and saw her grip on his wrist tighten.

“Kirsten?”

“What – His heart is going crazy,” she gasped, staring at Cameron’s wrist in horror before looking at him in the eyes. “Cameron. Holy crap. Camille, call – ”

“Don’t, don’t. It’s okay.” Camille didn’t bother with his hand; she pressed her palm right above his heart. The organ was beating erratically beneath her palm; too fast with jerks like it was being kicked. One particularly vicious kick had Cameron exhaling shakily, obviously hiding a groan. “It’s fine. I just forgot. I just need a moment.”

“You forgot?” Camille said, incredulous. “What? You forgot to tell your heart how to beat properly? That’s bullshit, Cam. You’re basically dying.”

“I’m not dying,” Cameron sighed. “It’s just heart palpitations. It’s really not as – ” He broke off and flinched, hard, automatically curling in around himself. Camille felt the way his heart had squeezed all wrong, and her own heart started thudding in fear.

“Explain, or we’re hauling you off to Ayo right this very second,” Camille insisted.

“We should be doing that anyway,” Kirsten countered, looking grim.

Cameron sighed, again, and slumped a little in his chair. He looked everywhere but at their faces. “I was born with a bum heart. Took the doctors a few years to figure it out, and when they did it was… bad. Had surgery when I was ten. It fixed most of it, but not all of it. The rest can’t really be fixed by the technology we have right at this point in history, so I instead deal with what I can in ways I can. But the medication is… it has a few crappy side-effects, sometimes. So I…” He paused, struggling for words. “Moroi bites… they don’t only release endorphins.”

He finally glanced at both of them, and then settled on Kirsten. “Your race has evolved to be the very best at extracting blood from a willing donor. That means making it pleasurable for the donor, for starters, but it also means making sure you get the best and easiest… meal.” He pulled a slight face. “So you also release agents and chemicals into blood that regulates your blood donor’s systems; fixes small problems to make the process better. If a Moroi bites a human with cholesterol, for instance, the venom starts to break that blockage down. Because cholesterol interferes with the blood sucking process. Some of those chemicals also regulate heartbeat; do, in a much better way, what heart pills do. The condition, of course, is that when you’re being fed from you can’t have any medication in your system, because it tastes hella nasty, apparently, and we still aren’t sure what human meds do to Moroi.

“Long story short – I wasn’t selected as randomly to be a feeder as people are led to believe. I was the experiment before I was the experimenter. And I’ve gotten into the habit of not taking pills on the days I’m being fed from. But I can’t be in the programme right now because of the stupid leg and this morning was manic and I just… forgot that it wasn’t a feeding day. Forgot to take the pills. And my body’s a little freaked out. That’s all. I’m fine.”

Camille and Kirsten stared at him. Camille’s stomach had dropped somewhere to her knees. “’My heart is going wonky because I didn’t take the medication I need to to keep it okay’ and then in the same breath ‘I’m fine’?” she said, incredulous.

“They’re mild palpitations,” Cameron countered, his expression long-suffering. “It’s…”

His heart kicked again, and he winced, and Camille automatically began rubbing at his chest. Her fingers slid over something bumpy underneath his skin – something metal, from the feel of it – and abruptly she remembered the day months ago when she’d been bewildered by the mystery of the missing buttons on his shirt.

“Does Ayo have meds?”

He shook his head. “She wouldn’t have those.”

“So, what, we’re just supposed to sit around and watch you -?” Kirsten was upset, and Camille couldn’t blame her for being so.

Cameron forced a smile. “It should be over soon.”

“Should,” Camille parroted, and he wouldn’t meet her eyes.

Kirsten’s expression hardened, and she suddenly lifted the wrist she was still holding to her mouth.

“Whoah -! Kirsten!” Cameron tried to jerk his hand away.

“I’m not going to heal you,” she countered.

“You – I’m going to taste like crap.”

“Oh, don’t flatter yourself – like you usually taste delicious,” Camille snorted.

It worked; he was surprised enough he glanced at her, and in his distraction, Kirsten bit down. Cameron’s heart sped up even more under Camille’s hand, and for a long moment she was terrified they’d made it worse. But then the quiet groan he released was familiar, and with one more jerky beat his heart slipped back into rhythm, calmly, as though there had never been anything wrong. Cameron sagged in the seat, eyes closed as he got his breathing under control, and Camille looked to Kirsten. The blonde’s face was screwed up in disgust, and Camille indicated the door that led to the bathrooms. Kirsten nodded, trying not to gag, and made a beeline.

Camille turned back to watch Cameron watching her go, his face ashamed and miserable. She should get an honorary PhD in distraction, she really should, she thought with a sigh.

“So, hey… I’m feeling bumpy things…?”

He looked at her, thrown, and blinked a few times. “The sternum doesn’t ever heal properly,” he finally said. “So they have to… staple you back together.” She ran another hand over the bumps after wordlessly asking for permission. “Those are the staples.”

“How bad was it?” she whispered, not quite able to meet his eyes. His silence was telling. She laughed shakily, suddenly feeling light-headed in her relief that he was there and breathing and okay. “So… I’m thinking I should start an I Died Once club. You’re my first official member besides myself.”

Cameron grinned slightly at her, and touched his forehead to hers. “How rare and beautiful it truly is that we exist,” he said, quietly.

Kirsten was still gone, and Camille was still shaken, and Cameron was a grounding anchor she’d always insisted she didn’t need but apparently really did. So she unlocked the doors sleep sometimes wrenched open, and looked at him and asked, “Was there anything for you? I mean… did you see…? For me, there was only blackness.”

He cupped her cheek, gently. “You have four minutes after your heart stops to be resuscitated,” he said, quietly. “I think you didn’t see anything because you weren’t gone, yet. Kirsten was already working on bringing you back.” He smiled, gently. “But that’s not the sort of thing you want to waste your whole life worrying about. It defeats the purpose of living.”

“Ha. What is this purpose you speak of?” She was being flippant and purposefully argumentative, but he looked at her seriously and answered, anyway.

“I, for one, am not going anywhere until you and Kirsten are safe.”

***

The world was spinning out of control around them. Camille and Kirsten were gripping hands, tightly, but even that didn’t anchor either of them. Not when Maggie and Turner were a second from ripping into each other physically. Not when Cameron was standing in front of them like a guard with huge eyes.

“It’s just a theory,” Cameron insisted, again, as though Turner would listen this time.

“We cannot just get another dhampir and make them bond-mates with Kirsten,” Maggie snapped. “She’s not the only Moroi we need to protect! This afternoon’s attack proved that! We lost good people, Turner. This is supposed to be a place to keep them safe!”

“We need Spirit to turn Striogi back to Moroi,” Turner argued, smoothly. “If we get their best and make them our best, again…”

“That’s just a theory,” Cameron said, again.

“And I’m ordering us to test it, Goodkin,” Turner said, turning a dangerous look on Cameron. “Either you help me – use your scientific whatever to make it as safe as possible – or I do it myself.”

“Over my dead body are you going to force Kirsten Clark to bring another person back to life,” Maggie snarled.

“Careful, Baptiste. I can make that happen,” Turner warned. “Just grab a random human off the street – somebody nobody will miss. Bring them here. She gets another bond-mate; somebody to share her negative effects with so that she can become stronger. Then we work on turning Strigoi; on a real weapon against the bastards.”

“We don’t know what healing a human will do to her,” Cameron insisted, not backing down from Turner’s advance.

“It’s not a request.”

“That person is going to be in her head,” Cameron argued, actually taking a few steps forward, his anger rising. “In both of their heads! That’s not even mentioning the fact that bringing – ”

Turner’s hand closed over Cameron’s throat. Camille and Kirsten both shouted and started forward, but Turner released Cameron casually and he staggered back, barely-healed leg folding a little underneath him.

“Find a human, or I’ll send people to find one. Help me do this, or I’ll make her do it without your expertise. This is not a negotiation.” And then a sudden gleam entered his eyes. He took out a stake and pointed it very solidly in Camille’s direction. “Or perhaps we don’t need a second bond-mate? Perhaps we just need to strengthen the bond.”

Kirsten and Camille both tried to fight. Maggie was able to wrench Camille out of Turner’s hands. Everybody was yelling and panicked and angry, and it was therefore a moment before Linus yelling Cameron’s name got people’s attention.

Cameron sat on Kirsten’s usual recliner chair, his face pinched. There was a syringe in his arm that clattered to the floor as his fist went numb. Horror nearly sent Camille to her knees.

“If it has to be somebody…” He was panting already as Kirsten reached him.

“What did you do?” she cried.

“Will st…stop my heart.”

“No,” Camille groaned, making her way forward on shaky legs.

“This way… if it works I’ll f…find a way to make it b…better for you two. And if…if it doesn’t…”

He shuddered and groaned and slipped sideways. Camille and Kirsten both caught him. “Don’t let me be one of them,” Cameron whispered. “And don’t… don’t make this your fault. If you see my ghost, k…kick…”

They laid him on his back out of automatic habit more than anything else.

“Cameron? Cameron!”

“Cam? Cammy Cam?” Camille felt herself starting to cry. “No… Cam…”

Kirsten caught her hand in a vice-like grip and met her eyes. “This is going to kick you in the ass,” she whispered.

“I don’t care,” Camille snarled, dashing at her tears and then at Kirsten’s. “You save him.”

TITLE: Roadtrip by Just Janelle. 

RATING: T

SUMMARY: Post-season one happenings, Kirsten takes Cameron on a road trip to get them both out of town for a while. Obvious Camsten. 

MY TWO CENTS: Nothing about the romance feels forced, to me, and there’s also such a genuine feel to their interactions and dialogue. Plus, of course, this fic was before canon decided to make Cameron 100% totally a-ok-dandy three seconds after his heart stopped. And I, of course, appreciate all the h/c. Plus that ending has a special sort of thumbs up to me =P 

TITLE: Very Romeo & Juliet by Shippershape 

RATING: Not rated (I’d make it around a T) 

SUMMARY:  Based on a tumblr prompt about soulmates' hearts beating in sync. I adapted it to fit Kirsten and Cameron's very unique situation. Established Camsten.

MY TWO CENTS: This concept is an amazing one for sure, and I loved seeing it explored. I mean, I pretty much love everything that doesn’t ignore Cameron’s heart issues or that plays them up a little but this was something I’d never thought of before and it was so interesting to read. Another no-forced, no-overly sappy but still very sweet Camsten-romance fic. 

TITLE: Zip Ties Can’t Hold Kirsten Clark by icyvanity 

RATING: T

SUMMARY:  "I won't get kidnapped." Kirsten totally got herself kidnapped. Camsten. 

MY TWO CENTS: A fic on my rec list that doesn’t feature Hurt!Cameron? Will wonders never cease? In all seriousness: this fic is great (And it does, actually, mention Cameron’s heart sooo.) and has some really funny moments. And good character exploration - I like how all of them were handled with care and how this felt pretty close to the show. 

TITLE: A Nondenominational Holiday Miracle by Shippershape.    

RATING: Not rated (I’d give it a very low T) 

SUMMARY:  Cameron wakes up from his coma just in time for Christmas. A lot of things have changed, but some things never will. Camsten and Camus. 

MY TWO CENTS: Okay, so this one gets really mushy toward the end; too much for my personal tastes. But the beginning is really good and explores the team and their relationships and what could have happened post season one. Plus, it just proves yet again that Tim is just about the best thing in that show ever. 

TITLE: Of Motorcycles and Men by Eiri Wise 

RATING: T

SUMMARY:  Cameron is injured during an investigation and refuses to take it easy. Light Camsten fluff. Filling a prompt from Stitchers Fanfic Prompts on Tumblr. Takes place sometime during season 2. Camsten with some CamCam friendship in the background. 

MY TWO CENTS: I mean... just look at that summary. This is everything I ever wanted and more. And the romance isn’t forced or awkward... beyond all the awkwardness that Cameron and Kirsten are able to make for themselves, that is. This is a good fic. And I really wish there was more to it. Also, Camille is a badass. 

TITLE: Everything After by Mac-alicious 

RATING: T

SUMMARY: Because there was a time before Cameron Goodkin was stupid enough to stick a needle of potassium methochloride in his arm, and now there is just, everything after. / / or, everyone is relieved when Cameron comes back to them, except Camille. Camille is angry. Oneshot. Rated for mild language. Mild Camsten. CamCam friendship.  

MY TWO CENTS: Camille is a goddess. The characterisation is so good. And the CamCam friendship is my life. It really is my life. This fic is just fabulous. That last line... YES. With everything in me: yes. 

TITLE: With a Little Help From My Friends by DinerGuy 

RATING: T

SUMMARY:  It was a normal assignment: find out who killed the John Doe from the park. The problem? His memories implicate a mysteriously absent Fisher as the murderer. Can the team find the truth -- and their teammate -- before it’s too late? Camsten.. 

MY TWO CENTS: It’s honestly a lovely, meal-sized fic about whumpy team bonding and good one-liners. And Maggie internally wishing she had a job that didn’t include babysitting otherwise super intelligent adults. Please do yourself a favour and read this one. 

TITLE: No wind, no rain by niux 

RATING: T 

SUMMARY:  During the last scene of 3x01. Cameron finally comes home after the lockdown. Clearly, some people can wait forever for their love, some can't wait for 3 days. Camsten. 

MY TWO CENTS: Honestly, I’m just here for this fic for its  mention that Cameron wears contacts (I’ve turned into one of those people about details like this, oh man) and for more resolution for Nina. And I’m not even ashamed to admit that. 

TITLE: The Limits of our Worlds by VeryImportantDemon 

RATING: T 

SUMMARY: "The limits of my language means the limits of my world." -Ludwig WittgensteinIn which Cameron and Camille don't just speak English, are college roommates, and - consequently - are best friends. Or: They are both massive word nerds, and these are the stories of the times Camille has used language to help her best friend, and the time Cameron tried to do the same.

MY TWO CENTS: Yes, it was written for me. Yes, it’s based off of one of my own shitty headcanons/AUs. Yes, this fic is still one of the greatest I’ve ever read. It is everything I want and it is glorious. 

TITLE: Everything Sarah has written ever by inducestitchneurosync. 

RATING: All the ratings 

SUMMARY: Sarah is amazing and kicks ass 

MY TWO CENTS: SERIOUSLY. Go read it ALL. And then look at her gifs. She is a treasure to us all. Find her fic 

The SWAT team - an entire highly skilled squad with helmets and everything, just to keep them in line. Camille was almost flattered - marched them back into the NSA holding facility at gunpoint. Nobody said a word, but there were different conversations held in everybody’s silence. Maggie was resigned, Linus slightly nervous, Fisher spoiling for a fight, Kirsten mad as hell and Cameron suddenly very guilty as they came across the guard whose uniform he wore, standing in his underwear in the hallway. The guard glared deeply. Cameron mouthed an apology and looked at the ground.

It was because she was watching Cameron blush and deciding how much gentle teasing she was allowed to give him once they were no longer the filling of an awkward NSA goon doughnut that she saw him reach up and rub at his chest. A pang of worry and sympathy shot through her, and she quickened her steps, placing a light hand on his shoulder. When he looked at her, she looked pointedly at where he’d just rubbed and then up again, letting her brow knit in concern.

He smiled reassuringly. She shook her head. And as she opened her mouth to speak, a guard cut across her.

“We’re splitting you up so you don’t try anything stupid again. Two in a room. Let’s go!”

Cameron and Camille locked eyes for a moment before he took a hurried few steps to Kirsten’s side. Camille nodded at him, seriously, gravitating toward Linus. Cameron would keep Kirsten safe. And would be able to talk her down... if she didn’t slap him again. But as they were ushered into the first room, she stared hard until she caught his eye and then mouthed, clearly, pillow. Because he would take care of Kirsten, but there wouldn’t be anybody to take care of him. Ordering him to hug a pillow - open up the chest space, give more oxygen, alleviate the pain, just like she’d seen him do in secret places one too many times - was the least she could offer, but it was something. And he tended to obey, when she used the face she was shooting his way as the guard closed the door.

 ------------------------------------

Every particle in the air seemed to crackle with tension, and the only thing Cameron could hear was the blood in his ears and he continued litany of holy shit Camille is going to get shot, Camille is about to get shot, oh, no, Camille is about to get shot, holy shit is Kirsten okay she’s fine Camille is about to get shot that kept running through his mind like a spinning top.

The only thing that broke through his haze of steadily growing panic was the bomb Kirsten dropped, and Cameron snapped his head away from Camille to their resident stitcher as a surprised exclamation left his lips. “What?”

Her father had…? Oh, yIntagh. This was the wheelchair man all over again, but far worse. And Blair… Blair was cracking. While still holding  gun to Camille. Cameron caught her eyes and saw the fear there and took a step forward before he knew what he was doing, an arm reaching out to her in automatic spasms he had to force himself to abort.

Oh, shit, Camille was going to get shot she was going to get shot this was all his fault why hadn’t he seen this coming Camille, Camille, Camille…

Blair let go, and Cameron’s hand found Camille’s shoulder - warm, solid, real, unharmed, with a pulse beating in her neck. She turned and snarled at Blair, vicious words and teeth to cover her fear, and he let her have her say before he grabbed her wrist and pulled her as far away from the man as he could, hearing her heels click against the floor in the explosive silence.

He kept pulling until she was tight against him, a small package of dynamite in his arms. Alive. She was alive. Kirsten was alive. They were all alive. She hadn’t been shot. He exhaled and pressed his face briefly into her hair and promised her with his silence and tight, tight embrace he’d never tell a soul about how her breath hitched in that moment or how she shook.

He let her step away, keeping a hand on her wrist for as long as he could, facing Blair’s decision to cart them all away. He’d fight his way furiously back to Kirsten, but he’d probably never see most of them again. Not Linus, not Camille. He hadn’t let it sink in before, refusing to let his mind fully process reality, but it hit like a ton of bricks then, with his fingers curled over the pulse in Camille’s wrist. They were being taken from him. All of them.

Camille gripped his hand back tightly. And Cameron inhaled a shaky, shaky breath.

 -------

Camille made sure Kirsten entered her room, fulfilling the terms and conditions of her secret promise, and then she pulled up the phone and hit number seven on her speed dial.

“All good?” Cameron’s voice asked her.

“We’re both home and there are no government agents waiting in our house to kill us. I won’t eat anything that I don’t remember buying, though. Just in case. Your side?”

“Yeah, just got back as well. And the place is totally empty. Seems Kirsten actually pulled this one off.”

“Yeah, never say never,” she warned, darkly. “Blair isn’t going to take this lying down.”

“No, probably not but we - ” He broke off. There was a slight rustling but no more talking.

“Cameron?” she queried after a long while. “Hey, you still there?”

“Sorry,” he said, sounding a little sucker-punched. “I… Nina left a note.”

“One saying how much she really loves you and your adorable nerdiness?” Camille tried, already cringing in sympathy for him. Oh, Cameron.

There was a breathy almost-laugh. “Not so much.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, and meant it. “What are you going to do?”

“I…” He paused for a long time, and she listened, chewing on her lip. “I’m going to call her.”

“What are you going to say?”

“Sorry. And… good luck.”

Camille blinked. “You’re… not going to try and get her back? Cam, you love her.” But he also loved Kirsten. And his lab. But they’d already had that talk, and she was going to leave her firm chastising back in the past.

“I know,” he said, heavily. “But… I’m done using that as an excuse to hurt her. I do love her. But that means I have to want what’s best for her and not just what means I get to keep her close, no matter the consequences to her.” He swallowed audibly. “She… she deserves better.”

“She deserves better than what you can give her,” Camille corrected firmly. “Not better than you. There’s a difference. Hey, Goodkin.”

“Yeah?”

“I’m proud of you. And I’m sorry.”

“Sleep tight, Camille,” he said, a weight of something she didn’t have full understanding of in his words.

But as soon as she found herself, in her pyjamas in the house that was almost as familiar as the one she actually lived in, the conviction melted away and left an acid taste in her mouth, like rancid butter on a hot day. Because she could find her way around this kitchen with sleep-slitted eyes for a two am glass of water. But this was not the kitchen she’d had Liam pressed up against her just hours before, advancing and not stopping, not stopping, reaching and pushing and touching and closer and –

Camille shut her eyes and took a deep breath and repeated the words she’d been so convinced of a few hours ago. She was fine; she just didn’t want to be around anybody right then. They rang false even before she made them sound in her own head. Because while she didn’t want Liam’s hands on her ever again, and didn’t want Maggie’s subtle disapproval that she’d let Kirsten find out, and didn’t want Linus’ hurt and assumptions, and didn’t want Kirsten’s betrayal and rage and judgement, she did just want to be held. Camille stared at the lights of the city and made herself admit it: she wanted somebody to hold her. And maybe that meant she wasn’t so fine after all.

She kicked off her shoes as she went, leaving car keys and house keys on the counter as she passed. Cameron was still in his bed, the room dark, but she knew that floor and the position of that furniture like some ingrained muscle memory, and before long she was buried in his ridiculous silk sheets right against him. Camille planned to just lie there and soak up his presence while he slept, but as soon as she’d settled there was a hand curling into her hair, soothingly scratching against her scalp.

“Sorry,” she said, whispering out of habit. “I didn’t mean to wake you up.”

“I was awake,” he dismissed, pulling her closer. After the night air, he was almost uncomfortably warm. “You okay, Darling?”

She pressed her lips to his shoulder, the soft cotton of his shirt rubbing against her face, and forced herself not to say anything. Cameron sighed, and she knew her good-as-brother well enough to hear his heartbreak for her in the noise. But he didn’t press, and instead just kept stroking her hair and her cheek and her collarbone until the motions put her into a sort of sleepy stupor.

“Go to sleep,” she murmured to him, hoping the words were coming out as she drifted more and more into oblivion. “I’m okay. A little messed up, but okay.” His fingers stayed clenched in her hair, no longer stroking a steady rhythm but instead curling tight in a half-hearted scratching before releasing in intermitted intervals. “Cameron.”

Camille buried closer, tired, worn out, more asleep than awake and wanting him to follow her into dreams. It took her long moments to piece the clues together, but eventually her brain connected the heat and sweat of his skin with how quiet he’d been and the small shivers she could now feel zinging down his body and as soon as the link was made she forced her eyes open and sat up, swearing. His forehead under her palm was clammy and far too warm, and she swore again.

“Don’t swit-” The sentence tapered off into a groan as she flicked on the bedside light, and Cameron shoved his face into a pillow, eyes screwed shut against the light.

Camille threw the jacket she’d discarded on his floor over the lampshade, muting the light so that she could still see without it continuing to drive pickaxes through Cameron’s skull as she suspected it was doing. Even in the dim lighting he looked like shit.

“What’s wrong? When did you get sick? What have you taken?” She pushed back his sweaty hair and watched his hands as they continued to clench and unclench in the way she’d assumed was him fighting sleep to continue scratching her head but what was, in reality, an instinctive attempt to ride out some kind of pain. “Cameron? Cam.” The franticness building inside of her was leaking into her voice. “So fever. And it hurts,” she prompted gently but firmly.

“Headache,” he finally admitted, eyes still screwed shut. “Whole body just… hurts. Off and on. Linus’ niece was sick – I went over with him to her house to look after her. Probably caught it.” He grimaced deeply. “Took ibuprofen. Probably wore off a little.”

“Do you have a thermometer somewhere? I wanna take your temp.”

His fingers curled around her wrist. “Just sleep,” he mumbled. “Both of us. It’ll be better in the morning. Just the flu. Come on, Pumpkin.”

But despite his protests, Camille got up, found some more pills and made him drink a glass and a half of water and take off the sweat-slicked shirt he’d gone to bed in in an effort to bring down his body temperature. There was a half-hearted joke about her taking his clothes off, but although she played along it was mostly so she could tuck just the sheet around him and return to his side. He sighed in relief when she flipped off the light.

“Go to sleep,” he mumbled. “Just the flu. Caught from Tammy.”

“You must have picked it up somewhere else,” she insisted, fingers tracing worried patterns against his clammy skin. “Linus told me they found out Tammy had chickenpox.” Horror hit her like a ten-tonne truck, her heart clenching and sinking further and further as she could not recall any mention of the disease while they’d been growing up. “Cameron.” Her voice was forced calm. “You have had chickenpox before, right? Before your parents adopted me?”

He looked at her, face blank with surprise, and then he laughed warily. “No, I only got the special medical stuff. I guess the universe thought I was too good for the usual children ailments.”

Camille swore, loudly, and sat up to reach for her phone. He talked her down by reminding her Ayo had a life; a family she was spending time with and didn’t need to be called away from at three in the morning. He talked her down with logic that it could just be the flu.

But when, in the light of dawn she woke from a fitful sleep for the nth time and saw the unmistakable blotches all over him, nothing he could say would keep her from waking Ayo up with a phonecall full of barely contained panic.

***

Cameron’s longsuffering look was not diminished by the fever-bright tinge of his eyes, or the fact that he looked like somebody had spit red ink at him.

“You keep trying to scratch,” she told his frustrated look, continuing to secure the socks over his hands. “And when your fever spikes you don’t listen to us telling you to stop.” She didn’t add that it was a little scary, seeing him awake but not really aware, going for his skin even as he made himself bleed. Instead, she added a joke to try and lighten the mood. “I can Wingwoman From Heaven to help find people to help with some of your itches, Cammy Cam, but this isn’t one of them.”

He snorted weakly, a smile tugging on the corner of his mouth. “That was awful,” he rasped, and then wouldn’t let her kiss him on the forehead.

“I’m immune,” she reminded him.

“Some people get it twice,” he countered, before weakly batting at her with sock-covered hands, doing a terrible sock puppet show to try and distract her.

“How’s the leper?” Linus asked mock cheerfully as he entered, stopping short any retort Camille could have had. “Dude. You look like shit.”

She was tired enough and worried enough that she had to forcefully swallow the rude snarling she wanted to send Linus’ way, more aware than ever that they were in the lab where everybody could hear her and judge her more than they already had. Pointed jabs about her only being employed because she was Cameron’s legal sister tended to raise their heads at the most surprising of times, striking without warning so viciously they usually took her breath away. But she knew they would come this time; her ploy with Liam coming to light so soon after Theo had run raucous would make others question her actions and how much of her affections for Cameron were genuine and platonic. They were usually careful to toe the line in public, high school and college rumours and whispers making them realise that just because they knew the touches and cuddles and kisses were all innocent didn’t mean the world would understand. And she was already jumping over that usually carefully maintained line by holding his hand near constantly and not leaving his temporary infirmary bedside.

“Dots are in this season,” Cameron rasped back before wincing.

“So are delicious smoothies,” Camille tried, pointing to the one on his bedside. Cameron sighed and she mirrored the action while Linus hovered anxiously. “I know you’re not hungry, but you can’t not eat.”

He’d tried for them, in the beginning, bending to their coaxing eventually. But the past two days had seen him immune to even pleading and threats and Kirsten’s puppy eyes. He looked at her, half delirious and pale and spotted and drained and squeezed his eyes shut in a look she knew to be him signalling defeat against some private battle he’d been waging.

“I think,” he whispered, “it’s in my throat. It hurts to swallow.”

Linus and Camille swore almost simultaneously, and she didn’t even have to tell him to go and fetch Ayo.

***

Camille was stupid with lack of sleep, and that was why she found herself rooted in the doorway, watching the scene with numbness that barely contained the emotions that wanted to come out as a scream. Kirsten was seated beside a mostly zoned-out Cameron, patiently feeding him little chips of ice.

She had no right to feel jealous. She had no right to feel frustrated that he hadn’t forced himself to swallow the ice for her. She had no right to think of the chair Kirsten was sitting on as hers. She had no right to feel betrayed and aching and lost. They were siblings, yes, but she did not own him and could not hope that the way they’d always been with each other would survive into adulthood. She’d known from the beginning he loved Kirsten and probably always would.

You are, she told herself sternly as she marched away before anybody could see her staring, so royally messed up inside.

***

Even if they removed the socks from his hands, they shook too much for him to write or type properly. Sometimes it became necessary; sometimes he was the only one in the lab who knew how to fix the crisis suddenly happening and despite the slowly – so slowly – fading splotches and the off-and-on fever and the newborn-kitten weakness they had to come to him for answers.

But, mostly, they left the socks on so he wouldn’t subconsciously scratch and cause another infection, and they made do with a weird form of charades while the scabs in his throat were still too raw for him to be able to speak at all. It wasn’t as hard as Camille had first feared – Cameron was expressive and patient and they rarely got stuck in their communication.

“You had the banana mush for breakfast. Was it okay?” Cameron wrinkled his nose and Camille tried not to smile as she rolled her eyes. “I meant did it go down well, not did his majesty’s refined palette enjoy it or not.” He flicked one eyebrow skyward for an instant. “Okay, so passable. Want to see if a smoothie for lunch is passable, too?” Cameron looked meaningfully to the IV in his arm. “No, Ayo wants you on that until you’ve been consuming food for a few days.” His eyes narrowed. “You haven’t eaten a proper meal in a week. You were skinny as shit to begin with. That is giving you nutrients and – Don’t give me that shit, Goodkin.” His look turned into a scowl. “You’ll keel over without it. Especially since you’re nowhere close to being able to swallow pills yet. And I think you screwed up the defib the last time.”

His look turned contrite and he reached out to squeeze her hand gently. She squeezed back.

And then noticed that Linus and Kirsten were gaping at her. “What?” she asked, automatically moving to stop Cameron rubbing at the point the IV entered into his arm to try and get rid of the irritating sensation of a needle in his vein.

“You just had a full on conversation with him,” Linus said, slowly.

“Yeah?” Camille frowned.

“It took me fifteen minutes to decipher he wanted something to drink this morning. When the hell did you get fluent in Cameron?”

There was a tinge of surprised hurt to Linus’ words, and Kirsten’s gaze burned the side of Camille’s head. It hit her only then that he was right; that even though they did not live together any more and even though she insisted to herself over and over that Cameron and Camille Vs The World was a childhood necessity that would be unhealthy in adulthood they knew each other. She could tell when he was lying, when he needed to sit but was too stubborn to, when he needed to switch to tea, the differences in his frowns.

Cameron’s hand subtly touched the base of her spine; a soothing, automatic gesture he knew would make her relax. She wasn’t just fluent in Cameron; they were fluent in each other.

“You two got Klingon, don’t you?” she brushed it off, trying not to sound relieved at the revelation that he was still there or guilty at how much she’d failed at trying to disentangle her mess from her brother’s life so he’d remain unharmed by her. “Besides; I’ve known him for forever.” Since her real birth; since the day she’d really started living. He’d been there for that moment.

But despite the guilt and the memories of the promise she’d made herself at the sight of his tortured face when they’d been torn apart to go to different universities, she found herself stopping in to say goodbye before she left, waiting until Ayo gave him the grilling on what to do and how to contact her immediately should something happen overnight.

“Behave, Cameron, and I’ll see about letting you go back to your own place in a few days.”

His theatrical look of relief had both Ayo and Camille snorting.

“Heading home for the night. Try not to develop small pox or dragon pox or the black death while we’re out.”

“You okay?” he mouthed at her, not bothering with the IV line still attached to him as he sat up and reached for her. His face was concerned.

She told herself she should resist, but it was Cameron, and he was looking more alarmed by the second, and he was warm, and her bed was empty, and he was solid and understanding… She curled close to him, tracing light patterns against the fading blisters and he skin he’d rubbed raw around the IV site.

He was stroking and kissing her all over, and she could sense his anxiety as she remained silent. It took a while of just breathing him in to remember he’d asked a question.

“I’m…” Messed up. “I’m fine.” He curled her closer and she laughed a little. “No, really. I’m going to be fine. Both of us will.”

I don’t feel adequate / thinking I’m a monster in disguise

Linus was sprawled in one of the chairs, a wide grin stretching across his face as he watched the unfolding scene in glee. Even Kirsten, leaning with her hip against the counter as she waited for the coffee to brew, glanced over every now and then. She wasn’t amused, per se, but Cameron knew with certainty that she would have been amused had she not had a disease that made emotions impossible. The thought made him simultaneously burn with mortified, little-boy embarrassment and light up with joy at the thought of him making her smile. A real smile – one that would probably make her eyes dance so fascinatingly he’d be even more content to stare at her for hours than he already was.

With some effort, he pulled his thoughts from Kirsten and her pretty eyes dancing in mirth, and focused on the subject of the altercation that was causing such amusement to Linus, at least.

“Where,” he asked Camille in a flat voice, “did you say you got…that?”

“You asked Linus and I to get you lunch while we were getting some for ourselves.” Camille was leaned against the counter, too, her eyebrows raised in a challenge as she and Cameron squared off. “So I got you lunch.”

Cameron eyed the sloppy bun with the nameless, brown goop spilling out its sides and then turned his scepticism onto Camille. “I thought you were going to go and get…” He waved his hand around, searching for a word to describe his expectation. “Something identifiable.”

“I told you he was going to flip,” Linus grinned from the chair.

“Did you really eat one of those?” Cameron fired at Linus.

“Some of us aren’t complete food snobs,” Linus said, primly. “I ate two.”

“And the stall owner didn’t happen to have… I dunno. A nefarious villain moustache? What looked suspiciously like half the corpse of a dead cat hanging out of his cart?”

Linus snort-laughed and Camille rolled her eyes, the corners of her mouth twitching in the grin she was trying to hide. “We got you lunch. Ambler is a good guy. I’ve bought from him before. It’s cheap and hearty and fills you up.” She pushed the polystyrene container of bun-and-goop toward Cameron.

“You buy food from a vendor called Ambler?” Cameron asked, incredulous.

“Cameron, babe, just eat the damned food.”

He still had reservations – of course he did, because he was a sane individual who paid a healthy amount of attention to what, exactly, he put in his body. And how or where that ‘what’ was cooked. But his iron-clad resolved wavered at the nickname. He was the one who usually piled nicknames on people – labels to get his point across, sometimes, but mostly to try and convey in a way that wasn’t overwhelming to the general population that he cared. Their parents had named them, but he was giving them another name because they were part of his clan, his lab, his family. Camille, he’d learned after the initial shock of being called babe so casually so often, understood that method of making meaning and did the same thing, albeit with only one nickname instead of Cameron’s seemingly endless stream. Babe was reserved for those part of her clan, her protected ones, her family. And being reminded of the way she saw him despite knowing him for less than half a year made the rest of his protests over the suspect food crawl right back down his throat.

Instead, he reached for the so-called burger with a deep sigh. He took a messy bite and pulled a face before he could stop himself. Linus cackled and Camille patted him, almost a slap, on the shoulder.

“You’ll be fine,” she sighed at him in exasperation.

***

Lifting his phone from the ground to his ear was such a momentous effort that Cameron almost gave up halfway. “’lo?”

“So,” Camille’s voice greeted him, over-cheery. “I might have, um, spoken a blessing over those burgers a little bit too soon.”

“Linus sick?”

“Oh, yeah. And Kirsten, too.” She paused. “Oh, shit. Please tell me this call is echoing because of crappy signal and not because you’re currently on the floor of your bathroom.”

“Sentence is too long to say,” he mumbled, his eyes drifting closed as his head rested against the blessedly cool tiles of his bathroom wall.

Camille swore and he winced at how loud it was. “Cameron. I’m so sorry.”

He gave a little hum to show he waved aside her apology. It almost turned into a moan as his stomach chose that moment to give an incredibly painful spasm. “Listen.” His teeth were grit, but he managed to spit the words out. “Gotta go. See you Monday. Have a good weekend.”

Cameron had, thankfully, progressed on to dry-heaving. But it was a progression that made very little difference – his head was still stuck halfway down his toilet, his eyes were still watering at the bitter taste in his mouth and his stomach was still cramping so badly he wanted to rip it out of himself to make it stop. Wasn’t that what monkeys who got shot in the belly, did? He couldn’t think straight; his head was pounding and it felt heavy and hot and useless. But he was almost sure monkeys who got shot in the belly…

When he next opened his eyes, it was to find Camille standing beside him. He cracked his head on the toilet cistern as he jerked in shock, and Camille winced at the sound as he let out a long noise of pain.

“I did tell you I was here.” Her voice was, thankfully and blessedly, quiet. And she hadn’t turned on the lights. So very, very considerate of her. He wanted to say so, but he couldn’t find the energy to lift his head from the rim of the toilet, let alone string together a ballad of gratitude. “Damn, Cammy, you look like shit.”

Cameron let his eyes drift shut as he hummed in response. There were quiet footsteps, silence for a while, and then footsteps again. Camille’s hand hesitantly and gently touched his shoulder. Blearily looking at her, he found she was crouched before him – in her socks, which was why she was so quiet – with a glass of water. He pressed his lips together, unhappy. “Drink this, babe. Come on. It’s no use getting dehydrated.”

She was persistent, and arguing with her would require energy he simply did not have. So Cameron took the glass in one shaky hand, and dimly noted that she kept a hold of it too, for support, while he slurped in some messy sips. It made the acid taste in his mouth more bearable, at least. But instead of leaving once she set the glass of water aside, Camille simply plopped to the floor beside him, placing one soothing hand on his knee. Usually her touches were as she intended them to be – soothing, reassuring and a point of contact that spoke louder than any words he’d ever been able to find. But right then her presence made his skin crawl uncomfortably. His stomach cramped again, long and painful, and he curled further into a ball in misery. Camille’s hold on his knee tightened as he breathed harshly through the pain.

“You don’t have to stay,” he forced out in her direction.

“I kinda caused this.” She sounded incredibly regretful. “And I’m not going to leave you alone when you’re this sick.”

“Linus?”

“Lives with his doting parents. They’re all over the nursing role on that end.”

“Kirsten?”

“Only ate one half of a corn dog. She’s nauseous but mostly fine; she’s in her bed with a bucket and her laptop, working furiously away on her latest… whatever it is. Besides, have you ever tried to nurse somebody with no emotions?”

He was too tired and too sore to crack a smile. “I’m fine here. You can go.”

“You’re really, really not, babe,” she said with a gentle snort. There were suddenly cool fingers against his forehead and in his hair, and for an alarming second Cameron thought he might actually burst into tears at how good the touch felt.

They lapsed into silence, Camille stroking his sweaty, unkempt, tangled hair as he dozed against the probably germ-infested toilet, until the stomach cramps became one long ripping pain and the water he’d forced down decided to revisit him. The only reason he didn’t shrug Camille’s hand off of his back where it was rubbing soothing circles was because he simply didn’t have the energy.

“Please,” he gasped at her, between heaves. “Please. You watching just… makes it worse.” Her rubbing stopped, but she stayed by his side. Cameron retched again, stomach cramping, neck and shoulders painfully taunt. “Just go,” he moaned.

Camille’s hand withdrew, but he only felt regret about what he’d said a long time later, once the heaving had stopped and he no longer felt like he had a pickaxe in his middle. His head was pounding and he was shaking so hard his teeth were beginning to chatter, and then there was suddenly a blanket around his shoulders. Camille was still there.

“Sorry,” he mumbled to her, using energy he didn’t know he had so he could grab her hand and squeeze.

“Hey. It’s okay. You’re feeling like shit.” She squeezed back, but didn’t touch him anywhere else; a small, deeply-ingrained part of him that he tried to squish wished she’d stroke his hair, again. “I’m so sorry, Cameron. I honestly had no idea.”

“S’kay.” She sounded miserable, and it drove daggers into his heart and made him withdraw her hand from hers. “Not y’fault. Not at all.”

“What can I do to help?” she asked softly, her hand a soft weight against his shoulder for a moment.

“Go home and get sleep.” He squinted at her. “Seriously. I’m fine. There’s nothing you can do.”

They stared at each other, her eyes searching his in the gloom. Her expression was one that made him feel even worse inside, and that crushing guilt and pain only intensified when she said, in a small voice, “I’m… I can try. I mean, I’m pretty good with… Surely I can’t make it all worse?” She tacked on a nervous laugh at the end.

“Oh, Pumpkin…” He sighed and took her hand again. “I didn’t mean…” Cameron squeezed his eyes shut and then forced himself to sit a little more upright. Everything spun, his head ached, his back protested mightily. He just wanted to sleep. Or die. Whichever was more convenient. “Have you… you know…” He swallowed and rode out another stomach cramp. “People who are… sick. And who have… families and friends. They… the illness becomes everybody’s life. It just… it consumes.” She was staring at him, blank-faced and shocked, and he sighed and peeled his sweaty hoodie away from his chest so he could lift it a little. Camille let out a little noise of shock that told him she’d seen the scar. Self-consciously, he let the hoodie fall back down, keeping his eyes trained on the dark outline of the shower. “Heart surgery. I was ten. Before that… before the surgery things were…” He shook his head, but stopped quickly when it made his headache worsen. “My mom and dad got consumed. And I never, ever want…” He swallowed. “It just… it’s worse when you watch.”

Camille scooted closer, her hands on his head again, and he hoped she’d pretend, as he was going to, that the little half moan he made when she touched his feverish forehead with those deliciously cool fingers would be forever ignored. “This isn’t life-threatening, babe,” she told him gently. “You’ll be okay in two or three days.”

“I know,” he mumbled back. “But it’s… it’s Friday night, and you’re here. Instead of living your life. And you’re sitting on my uncomfortable bathroom floor, stressed and worried and fretting and – ” he had to swallow a few times, again – “thinking only about me with my head down a toilet.” He shook his head. “Camille. I really do care about you. Please, don’t let me do this to you.”

“Do this to me?” she repeated, tone incredulous. “Cam. Cameron. It’s not your fault you got sick. You’re not…” She scotched even closer, pulling him to lean against her instead of the toilet. “You’re not doing anything wrong,” she said, very quietly, and for such a childish, simple thing to say it made his heart feel like it had just concaved inwards. “You’re not hurting me, or whatever. I’m here because I love you, babe. And this is what friends do. Especially when it was friends who unintentionally poisoned you in the first place. And before you even start, I’m not here because I feel guilty.”

Cameron didn’t answer, the unhappy, guilty, self-loathing part of him retreating slightly at her words and touch but never fully disappearing. Camille sighed but held him for a long, silent while, until he was on the cusp of sleep. “Can we try some water again? Please?”

He did, for her, and this time he was able to keep it down so she slowly fed him more and more until caution caused her to pause. When he was sure she must have been there for hours he once again begged her to go home, but she instead simply helped him to his feet and half carried his completely, uselessly weak body to his bed. She found a bin and lined it for him, just in case the water made another appearance, and then began setting up a station of medication and snacks around his bed. She was doing this because she loved him, and that somehow made it worse – if it was guilt, at least she would get over it and move on and not get sucked in by him. But love… love was dangerous, in this regard.

“Stop thinking so hard – your brain is already a little fried, and we need it for important government things.” She kissed his forehead and fed him pills that he took obediently, even though his skin crawled at the sight of more medication being shoved into his complacent mouth. “Go to sleep, babe.”

“Only if you do,” he countered.

He meant that she should go home and get a good night’s sleep in her own bed and possibly check up on Kirsten, but instead Camille sighed and crawled onto the bed beside him, shrugging off her jacket before snuggling down on top of the covers. His head reeled in surprise and he gaped at her.

“Go to sleep,” she ordered, again. “I’ll wake you in an hour or so for more water. It’s okay. Just sleep.”