Chapter Text
Joe unlocked the door to his apartment and ushered Cameron in. She had been silent the entire ride back to his place, but he hadn’t yet pressed her to explain what happened.
His plans to meet Cameron at 10:00 pm tonight had been delayed when he’d had an unexpected business call from a potential client in Japan. He couldn’t very well miss it, so he figured being a little late wouldn’t hurt. Apparently, it had.
He had moved out of the apartment he’d shared with Sara, so boxes still lined the walls of his new place. The scarce furniture didn’t offer much in the way of comfort, but he had finally bought a couch, a notion that probably would have pleased Gordon.
Joe led Cameron to the sofa and gestured for her to sit down. She did so absentmindedly, not looking at anything in particular. The vacant expression in her eyes was starting to alarm him, and he couldn’t help the question that came out of his mouth.
“What happened back there, Cameron?” Worry laced his words, as much as he tried to hold it back. She was doing a hell of a good job at not looking at him, and hadn’t since the attack.
She didn’t move for a minute, as if she was waiting for him to leave. Finally, her eyes lifted up to meet his. “It was nothing. Just a…stupid, misogynistic asshole. Nothing I haven’t dealt with before.” He eyed her suspiciously, but she went back to ignoring him. She shifted slightly to lean further into the couch, but inhaled sharply when her head brushed the back.
His brow furrowed at her reaction. Joe had seen the man at the bar ram her head against the wall, though he wasn’t sure how far the damage extended. Anger at himself swooped through his body. If only you had been there at the time you actually told her… The voices in his head were unrelenting over any situation, and this was no exception.
When Cameron moved her hand to touch the back of her head, she winced in pain again. Without a second thought, Joe went quickly to his kitchen. He grabbed an ice pack from the freezer and filled up a glass of water. One of the open boxes on the counter housed various medicine bottles, and he fished around the box until he found Tylenol. He made his way back to the living room where he saw Cameron leaning over with her face in her hands, her body tense. Joe sat on the coffee table opposite of her and she slowly moved her head to look at him.
“Here, take these,” he said as he took out three of the white pills. He pressed the glass of water into her hand and the Tylenol into the other. As she tilted her head back to swallow them, the light from the lamps shone on her neck, illuminating what appeared to be dark bruises. The anger that had dissipated slightly came back in full force.
She put the water on the coffee table in front of her. Joe grabbed the ice pack and moved to sit on the couch on her right, facing her.
“What are you doing?” Cameron asked, her brow creasing with confusion as he tenderly placed the ice against the back of her head. She gasped sharply when it touched her bruise, but soon began to relax and closed her eyes at the cooling sensation.
“Where else are you hurt?” he asked her in a gentle voice that was unlike him. Cameron apparently noticed it too because she opened her eyes and furrowed her brow again.
“Does it really matter?” she snapped. He wasn’t taken aback by her random outburst. Even after being apart from one another for two years, he hadn’t forgotten her quirks. Putting up her defensive walls was one of them, and he was all too familiar with it.
“Yes, it does. Where else besides your head and your neck, Cameron?”
“God. Will you just leave me alone?” she snapped again, standing up and walking away from him.
Setting the ice pack on the table, he followed her fast retreat to the door. Cameron tugged the door open, but he quickly slammed it shut. She turned her blazing eyes towards him, but he only countered her glare.
“What is your problem?” she spat at him.
“My problem? I’m trying to help you! You were just attacked at a bar, Cameron, in case you weren’t aware.” He inched closer and stared down at her.
“Well, I don’t need your help! I never should have agreed to meet you in the first place! None of this would have happened if I had just listened to my instincts.”
“And what instincts would those be?” Anger was spreading through his body again, but for a new reason now.
“To never see you again! To never work with you again! I should have gotten away from you when I had the chance – why can’t you just leave me alone?” She tugged at the ends of her hair in exasperation.
“You didn’t seem too upset when I called you last night! In fact, you seemed more than happy to meet up with me tonight. Don’t try to pin all of this on me, this isn’t my fault.”
Cameron rolled her eyes and moved back to the couch to retrieve her forgotten backpack next to it. She then went to the side of the kitchen and picked up the phone that was hanging on the wall. Joe yanked it out of her hand and slammed it back onto the receiver.
She whirled around and shot another death glare at him. Her mouth opened to say something but he interjected.
“Don’t call a cab. Just stay here. You don’t need to be running around after what happened tonight.” His voice was interlaced with an emotion even he couldn’t place.
“Thanks, but I’d rather not be anywhere near you,” she said as she made to move around him. He grabbed her arm and turned her back towards him.
He didn’t say anything, only stared at her, taking in what had been missing from his life for the last two years. That face that he had missed more than any other’s. That temper that hardly any man could match, let alone a woman. That intelligence that kept him enraptured anytime she spoke. Those lips that he missed caressing every part of his body. He swallowed hard, unable to stop his mind from conjuring up a million forgotten memories.
Her eyes followed the bob of his Adam’s apple and trailed up to his mouth. She licked her lips and he subconsciously took a step closer. He moved to take her jaw in his hands, but she seemed to come back to reality, clearing her throat and looking away.
“Okay, I’ll stay here for a few hours…. At least until my headache goes away.” He nodded his head, not bothering to argue with her over this. Cameron moved back to the couch and dumped her backpack to its previous spot. She picked up the ice pack that was left discarded on the table and gently put it back on the bruise on her head. Joe felt his fingers twitch as he longed to be the one who was caring for her, but he knew she wouldn’t allow it, so he simply stood there and watched her.
The bruises on her neck were still haunting him as they grew a darker shade of purple. He turned back towards the kitchen and grabbed some ice out of the freezer and a towel to wrap them in.
With her eyes closed, she didn’t seem to register his reappearance until he sat down on the couch next to her again. Her eyes opened and narrowed in confusion at the ice he was holding in his hands. Apparently, she didn’t even know she had those bruises, he thought as he eyed her neck again. The anger he felt at the man in the bar came back for the umpteenth time that night. Letting out the breath he had been holding, he moved the ice slowly towards her neck, expecting her to slap his hand out of the way, but it never came.
Their gazes met as soon as the ice touched her skin. For once, he didn’t feel the need to say anything to her; this was enough. Cameron closed her eyes again at the relaxing ice, and didn’t try to fight him.
He wasn’t sure how long they sat there, but she eventually moved the melting ice pack from her head. Joe took it as his cue to do the same with the ice around her neck.
“So…. We might as well talk about what we had planned to at the bar,” Cameron said, looking at him again.
Cocking his head, he fixed her with a meaningful stare and said, “We both know I didn’t invite you there to talk about Mutiny…”
“Then what?” she feigned innocence; they knew full well what this was about.
“Us.” Cameron blinked at him before looking down at her lap.
“Joe…. Don’t do this again.”
“Why? They’re both gone,” he gestured to open air, referring to Tom and Sara.
“Why?” Her head shot up quickly with that word. “Did you completely forget how dysfunctional we were? We still can’t be in the same room without wanting to bite each others' heads off.”
He smirked at her comment. “We need the dysfunctionality. We knew what we were the second we met each other. You really think we’ve changed all of a sudden?”
“Well, it’s what you claimed you’ve done in the past two years,” she shot back at him.
“I tried to be a better man, a better version of myself. As much as I’d hoped I could change everything about who I was, I couldn’t. I could try, but it wasn’t real.”
“Then what is real?” Cameron fixed him with a hard stare. “What is real about you? The only thing I seem to remember is you manipulating everyone and ruining people’s lives.”
Joe narrowed his eyes at her and felt a rush of anger at her words. She wasn’t wrong, and he knew it, but was that how she would always see him?
“That’s all you remember? You don’t remember us being--” He was cut off viciously by Cameron.
“Oh, I remember you destroying my work on the BIOS for publicity. I remember you encouraging me to write the new DOS and then wiping that out from underneath me. I remember you always claiming you needed me but only using me as a way for you to get ahead.”
He felt his mouth fall open at her words. “You really think I would make those mistakes again? You really think I would risk what we have for another business opportunity?”
Harsh laughter met his ears as she sarcastically laid out, “I don’t know. You tell me. You’re the one who can never seem to learn from your mistakes. That fiancée of yours is a great example of this. Didn’t you just use her for her daddy’s connections?”
“Leave her out of this. She has nothing to do with this.” A sharp twinge of guilt coursed through him at the thought of Sara, but was washed out quickly by his anger at Cameron. His nostrils flared as she continued with her accusations.
“Or maybe she does? You needed to weasel your way back into my life and her father was the perfect way to do it. You couldn’t just leave me alone, let me move on and try to live my life? I was happy! I was doing fine without you!” Tears of anger were starting to well up in her eyes.
“Were you really? You seemed about as miserable as I was when we finally saw each other again. And you left Tom all too easily.”
“So this can be about Tom, but not about Sara?” she bit at him.
He ignored her question. “Answer me. Were you really that happy without me? Did Tom really replace me?” Reckless abandon was starting to take hold of him as he continued. “Did he spark a fire in you? Did he inspire you? Did he touch you the way I did? Did he keep you begging for more?”
“No! Okay? He didn’t do any of those things to me!” she said quickly, voice getting louder with each word. “He was nice, he listened to me, he treated me well, but it didn’t mean shit. It didn’t mean shit, okay, Joe! He didn’t push me to my most creative point or challenge me to take risks. He didn’t make me feel alive. He wasn’t you.”
Without warning, he crashed his lips against hers. His hands came up to the sides of her face, tilting her head slightly to the side. She froze under him, but didn’t fight him. He kissed her harder, willing her to respond to him. Suddenly, her lips were moving roughly against his and her hands were winding in his hair. Cameron moved closer to him as her tongue sought entry, exploring his once familiar mouth. He felt like he was on fire. It was all tongues and teeth, both of them fighting for dominance. He bit her bottom lip and that action elicited a moan from her that drove him even harder. This was the Cameron he was used to. Joe pushed her back onto the couch and laid his weight on top of her, moving his hands down to her waist. She ground her hips against his and he broke their kiss to let out a hiss before he crashed back against her. Moving his lips past her jaw and down to her neck, he lavished attention there, biting lightly then drawing his tongue over each mark.
His mouth worked its way up to the hollow behind her ear. It was a place that he knew drove her wild, a place that he hoped Tom had never discovered because it was his territory. A rush of possessiveness ran through him as his tongue and lips worked at that spot. Cameron let out a moan deep in the back of her throat that vibrated against his mouth. He smirked at the sound. Evidently she felt his smirk against her skin because she roughly pushed him up and back onto the couch cushion. She climbed on top of him and straddled his hips, grinding against him again, drawing out a grunt from him. She bent down to kiss him, pulling his head up to meet hers.
When he brought his hands up to cradle the back of her head, he was sharply called back to reality at her sudden wince and gasp of pain. He stopped what he was doing and gently sat her back down on the couch.
“Maybe we should save this for another night,” he suggested, breathing heavily. Her eyes shown with reluctance, so he continued. “You need rest. Take the bed, I’ll sleep out here.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I feel fine. I’ll just call a cab if you want me to leave so badly,” she said, irritation hanging onto every word. She moved to get up and leave again, but he put a hand on her arm.
“Cameron. Just stay here. Don’t fight me on this. Just this once,” he pleaded with a soft look.
She opened her mouth to say something, but closed it and only nodded. He leaned forward and once again took her jaw in his hands and pressed his lips to hers. It was a gentle kiss, nothing like the ones they had just shared. A voice in the back of his head reminded him of how much he missed these and how Sara’s kisses had never been enough. No one else had ever been enough.
Cameron broke the kiss and pulled back, staring at him with hesitant eyes. “I did it last time,” she blurted out.
“You did what last time?” Confusion spread across his face at her seemingly random words.
“Called out your name when I was attacked at a bar last time. I don’t know why I did it. I hadn’t seen you in almost two years and I don’t even think you were back in Dallas yet. I’m honestly shocked that Donna never called me out on it,” she chuckled awkwardly and looked down at her lap.
His brow furrowed even further at her words. “Why would you call out for me?”
She looked back at him and shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know. I guess I thought you would…take care of the situation. Which, judging by tonight, I’m sure you would have,” she smirked at him.
“That’s the whole reason? No one else could have handled the situation?”
“I don’t know, Joe. I guess… I guess I always felt safe when I was with you, like no one could hurt me.” She let out her awkward chuckle again and turned her gaze away from his.
Warmth spread through him at her words, warmth he hadn’t felt since he finally told her the truth about his scars. He grabbed her face and forced her to look at him. He held on to those eyes, hazel meeting green, putting as much meaning into that look as he could. He slowly moved forward and brushed the softest of kisses against her lips. Cameron responded with the same lightness and moved back to look at him again, a small smile creeping up her face.
Clearing his throat, he went back to what they had been arguing about. “But really, take my bed. I’ll sleep out here. Let me get you more ice.”
“No. Come on,” Cameron said, taking his hand and pulling him off the couch. He followed her down the hall towards his room, and for the first time in two years, he felt at ease, like the Gods finally wanted something to work out for him. And this time, he wouldn’t be giving it up for anything.