"This is the worst idea you've ever had." Cameron says, mimicking Kirsten's words to him before he stopped his heart. "And I've seen some bad ones." She just rolls her eyes.
"You're the one who died." She reminds him. "I'm not going to sit in the lab all day waiting to see if Fisher can get a warrant." As if on cue, Fisher walks in, the tight line of his mouth an indication of how his phone call with the judge went.
"It's a no-go with the warrant." He mutters. "I couldn't exactly tell them how we know about Alfonso's ties to the cartel, and without real evidence…" He sighs. "Sorry guys."
Kirsten just shrugs and turns on her heel, headed for the elevator. Cameron makes a noise of frustration, then dashes after her. It's going to be a long day.
"I can't believe you talked me into doing this." Cameron hisses, as they make their way into the very packed club.
"I didn't talk you into anything. I didn't even ask you to come." Kirsten whispers back. The lighting inside is nonexistent, only the flashes from a few strobes overhead and a couple dim bulbs over the bar illuminating the scene. Even in the dark the place feels dirty, and Cameron winces as his hand brushes the wall. He shakes his head.
"Like I was going to let you come here by yourself. Alfonso is an actual mobster. As in, the mafia. As in-"
"I get it." She cuts him off. "But he killed Nico, and if we can find evidence here of his involvement with the drug cartel, Fisher can arrest him. So let's just focus." As she pushes her way to the bar Cameron can't help but sneak a longer look at her outfit. The dress code at Kraken is strict, and Kirsten, determined to get in, has taken it very seriously. Her black dress is a notch past tight, the back dipping low and exposing more of her skin than he's ever seen. The plunging neckline is held up by a strap around her neck, and the platform heels she's wearing have easily closed the few inches of height difference between them. She's distractingly sexy. And from the way nearly every male they pass turns to watch her walk by, he's not the only one who thinks so.
They finally make it across the room, chests hitting bar top as the sea of people thins. Kirsten turns the full wattage of her smile on the bartender.
"Hi." She smiles at him. He smiles back, looking a little dazed. Cameron knows the feeling.
"Hi there." His voice has hints of Sicily, and Cameron can almost hear the bingo in Kirsten's head.
"I'm looking for Alfonso." She murmurs, leaning in towards him. The plan is that she pretend to be a client. The bartender looks her over once, then nods.
"He's in the back room. Tell the bouncer Tino sent you." She beams, dropping a bill on the bar, and then grabs Cameron's hand. He's being dragged along with her as she heads for the curtain, and he suddenly finds he really doesn't want to go back there.
"Wait." He plants his feet, bringing them both to a stop. She looks annoyed.
"What?"
"Kirsten, this is a really bad idea. I don't want you going in there." He can feel it in his bones, like a heaviness that roots him to the spot. Danger. Folding her arms across her chest, Kirsten frowns at him.
"You don't have to-"
"Don't say I don't have to come! You know I'm not going to let you go alone." He wonders if she really believes he would abandon her. He hopes not.
"Then let's go, girlfriend." And she's dragging him again. It's déjà vu when he finds himself staring up at an angry bouncer, but this time he steps aside to let them in. Or, apparently, to let Kirsten in.
"Just her." The towering stack of muscles with a rattail says, glowering down at Cameron. He scoffs, surprising both himself and Kirsten.
"That's not going to happen." If his voice is a little squeaky, so be it. He means what he says. Kirsten glances at him, biting her lip.
"Just give us a second." She tells rattail. She tugs on Cameron's arm, pulling him off to the side. "This is our only shot. Fisher didn't get the warrant. If I can't get in there this case is over." Her eyes are black in the darkness, pupils huge. He doesn't like this, it doesn't feel right.
"Stretch, please-" But she's squeezing his arm quickly, and then she's gone. The second she disappears behind the curtain the bouncer steps back into place, blocking his way. It might as well be a concrete wall.
He's leaning against the adjacent wall, locked in some sort of strange staring contest with rattail when he hears the gunshots. It's muffled, and if he wasn't so painfully on edge he would probably have mistaken it for the thumping club music. But he knows exactly what it is when the double tap cracks through the din of the club, and he's through that curtain before the bouncer even has time to register he's moved.
"KIRSTEN!" It's a scream, because he doesn't care anymore, because stealth went out the window the second that gun went off.
The room he's in is nearly empty, the last of a gaggle of drugged up club bunnies scrambling out a secondary door on the back wall. Alfonso is nowhere to be seen, Kirsten is-
She's there. He sees her and he almost, for the shortest of seconds, wishes he hadn't. Her face is glowing in the UV lighting, ghostly and ethereal all at the same time. She's sitting on a loveseat, eyes drooping, hand pressed carelessly against her stomach. Red oozes from between her fingers, dripping onto her bare legs like some kind of abstract art. His heart stutters once, twice, and then kicks so hard he nearly doubles over. He pushes past it, launching himself across the room to land on his knees in front of her.
"Kirsten." She blinks at him, eyes glazed. They're deep with something, not fear but sadness, and he doesn't know what that means.
"Hey." She murmurs. It's quiet in here, the music barely audible through the thick walls.
"I'm going to get you out of here." He says, voice breaking. She looks like an angel of death, beautiful and tragic and barely, barely alive.
"It's not your fault." She says. It sounds like giving up. He slips one arm under her legs, the other around her waist. She lets out a little cry of pain when he lifts her, but if he leaves her here she'll die.
"You're going to be fine." He tells her. He believes it because he has to. The world without her is too vast, too dark a place for him to even consider.
"It's okay." She mumbles into his neck. He's carrying her through a hallway, unsure of where that back door leads. It has to lead out. He's sure of that. He's bet her life on it.
"Isn't that my line?" He hadn't realized he was crying, but his voice shakes and he can feel the tears on his face now and no, no he shouldn't cry because she's going to be fine. She doesn't answer him, and he's running now, lungs burning and legs screaming but she's so quiet and he's never been so afraid of the silence. "Kirsten." He's out of breath, but her name comes like a prayer. "Come on, Stretch. Talk to me!" He's yelling at her, and crying, and oh my god is he a mess but her blood has soaked through his shirt and he swears it's seeping through his skin right into his soul.
The hallway ends, and he can see out the open door into the street. Still sprinting, he flies through it and looks around. A couple clubbers are stilling milling around the front door, one of them stops, pointing at him. A trio of girls hurry over, and he can see the light of a phone screen as one of them presses it to her ear. All of the sounds are distant, like it's him and Kirsten underwater. He sets her down, right there on the street, because he knows he's seconds away from dropping her. She's a murder scene in herself, sheet white, blood everywhere, hands still curled in the fabric of his shirt. Eyes closed.
"Kirsten." He whispers. One of the girls is at his shoulder, she says something about an ambulance on it's way. The other one asks a question. "No." He snaps in answer. "She's not dead." He cradles Kirsten's face in his hands, the sobs coming freely now because does he even believe that? "You're not dead." He chokes. "You're not-" And then the paramedics are there, and they're pushing him out of the way, and he's sitting in the street five feet away from the corpse of a girl he loves more than anyone ever should. It feels like freezing from the inside out as they lift her into the back of the ambulance, like his heart is slowing to a stop and turning to ice, and the blood in his veins has gone cold. One of the paramedics asks if he's been hurt, him, like Kirsten isn't the only thing in the world that matters, and he shakes his head. The older man grabs him by the front of his shirt, and Cameron finds himself sitting in the ambulance, right next to her.
"You can hold her hand." One of them says. He does.
The hospital is purgatory. They sit him in a waiting room and he must have told them to call Camille because she shows up with a change of clothes for him and a Linus who takes one look at him and drags him into the bathroom to wash up. He isn't surprised when the blood doesn't wash out from under his nails. He thinks it probably belongs there. On my hands, he thinks.
It's hours, but it feels like days, and he can't help but think that if Kirsten was here she wouldn't know the difference. He wants to die.
Eventually Maggie comes around. Fisher does too, and that's when Cameron realizes how long she's actually been in surgery. They all sit, and no one talks, and they take turns staring at him.
"It's probably good that they're still in there." Camille offers. "It means she's still-" Linus shushes her. Cameron wants to take comfort in that, but Camille wasn't there. She didn't see. She doesn't know. He doesn't say anything. After six hours the nurses stop coming out with updates. All the updates were the same.
No news. They're doing all they can.
After nine hours, it's over. The surgeon comes out, and they all know what it means. One way or another, this is it. Camille cries, Linus cries, Fisher collapses into his seat. Maggie corrals the surgeon, presumably to talk logistics. Cameron asks where she is. They don't want to let him see her.
"I'm not asking." He finally says. When he finds her, she doesn't even really look like her. He holds her hand like before. He stays, and stays, and decides he'll never leave.
Twenty hours later she opens her eyes. He's there. He can tell she's surprised to be alive by the way she says his name.
"Cameron?"
He wants to have kind words for her, something soft and easy and warm.
"I told you it was a bad fucking idea." He grunts. It's not one of his finest moments. She takes one look at his face and bursts into tears. Alarmed, he grabs her hand, his other on her face. "I'm sorry, shit, don't cry." She hits him with surprising strength for someone who just spent nine hours having two bullets removed from her abdomen.
She can't sit up, but she's trying, so he bends down to meet her. She presses her face into his shirt and cries for a little bit longer, mumbling something into his chest. He leans back, frowning down at her.
"What?" The words were lost into the flannel of his shirt. She blinks wetly up at him.
"I love you, you asshole." She repeats. His heart kicks painfully.
"Then don't ever do that to me again." It's a plea, but it's also an ultimatum. He can't love her like this if she won't love herself. He wouldn't make it through another 48 hours like the last.
"Okay." Her voice is small, and this is far from over, but it's more than enough for now. He lays gingerly down beside her, ever so careful of how fragile she is.
"I love you, too." He says. "God, you have no idea."
She smiles tearily at that, and he isn't sure where all these emotions have come from, but it feels intimate and important that she's finally let her walls down a little.
"Thanks for saving me." She mumbles, and her eyes are already starting to droop. Dying can really take it out of a person. He would know. He sighs, closing his own eyes.
"We're a team, Stretch. I need you."
They wake up to a room full of smug grinning faces, and he ignores the fact that Camille ends up with a wad of cash and an air of superiority. He doesn't want to know. Later, Kirsten tells him she loves him again. This time she doesn't call him an asshole.