~Later that night~
Kirsten took a deep breath before knocking swiftly on Cameron's door.
She went through one last mental check while waiting. Overnight bag, check. Phone with notes typed up, check. Cameron's keys (in case he didn't answer), check. Nerves, also check.
She was about to unlock the door when Cameron opened it.
"What are you doing here?," he deadpanned.
She pushed her way through, just like she had so many times before.
"I wanted to see if you were okay. You seemed pretty upset earlier today," she responded. Kirsten set down her bag and kicked off her shoes, right around the corner from his entryway.
Cameron watched her make herself at home in his apartment. It's almost as if… no, it couldn't be.
"I'm fine," he responded curtly.
Kirsten walked up to Cameron, still standing in his open doorway, and showed him her phone.
ACT NORMAL
I need to sweep for bugs.
Cameron nodded slowly, unsure as to what was actually going on. "How did you know where I live, anyways?," he inquired.
Kirsten pulled up her encrypted app and started sweeping his apartment. "Camille told me. She said we were friends."
Nothing came up on her sweep of the entryway to kitchen, so she continued on towards his living room.
"Yeah, we were something like that." Cameron closed his front door and followed Kirsten to the living room.
"Apparently Camille is moving in with her girlfriend. She seemed nice when they were over earlier."
Kirsten noticed the flash across her screen, notifying her that a listening device was within five feet. She held up her index finger to motion for Cameron to be quiet.
She looked under the lamp and around his end table, coming up empty. She checked along the underside of the couch, also nothing. Next she checked the TV stand. "So are you a Star Wars fan, based on your choice of movie?,"she asked, pointing at the collector's edition boxed set that was next to his blu ray player.
He was just in the middle of watching Star Wars Episode VI before Kirsten had showed up unannounced. "Absolutely! Episodes IV through VI were clearly the best, although I was pleasantly impressed by Episode VII. And Episode VIII will be out later this year."
"Yeah, Camille told me they're making the next three. I'll have to check out VII. Is this the one with the ewoks?," she asked, motioning to his TV.
"Ahh yes, the teddy bears of the Star Wars Universe. Yeah, they're in this movie."
"Teddy bears? Ewoks are freaking awesome," she exclaimed. "They're like badass ninja teddy bears, clearly superior to 'just teddy bears.' They're definitely my favorite part of that movie."
Cameron chuckled, because of course she would love ewoks. Although they had an eerily similar conversation when the two of them did a Star Wars marathon on a holiday weekend, just a few months ago.
Coming up short on the TV stand, she inspected his coffee table and discovered a small electronic device, tucked on the inside of one of the coffee table's legs. It couldn't have been larger than the size of a dime.
You wouldn't have noticed it unless you were specifically looking.
Cameron's eyes widened at the discovery. Just when he was about to ask, Kirsten pulled up her phone and scrolled down to her next message for him to read. She thought this through, coming up with a response just in case she found a bug.
Remember, act normal!
Destroy it some other time.
I need to sweep the rest of your apartment. Pack a bag so we can go somewhere to talk freely.
Kirsten carefully put the bug back under his coffee table and continued her scan of the apartment.
"Since Maggie gave everyone some time off, can you explain exactly what it is that we do in the lab?" She attempted to keep the conversation away from what she was actually doing, and away from what she actually wanted to tell him.
Cameron led the way into his bedroom and grabbed a small overnight bag from his closet. "Didn't Maggie brief you on that today?"
"Well she did, but I don't think my brain was focused enough to really process what she said."
Cameron nodded, and started pulling clothes out of his drawer and into his bag. "Fair enough. Basically we solve crimes by inserting your consciousness into the brains of victims that the NSA acquires from the LA county coroner's office."
"You put my consciousness into people's dead, degrading brains?" Kirsten feigned a look of disgust, which illicited a chuckle from Cameron.
"Sounds icky when you put it like that, doesn't it?"
"Just a bit. So how does that work, exactly?" She finished the sweep of his apartment, only detecting the one bug in the living room.
"The brain is a bio-electrical device and we have protocols to slow down deterioration of the victim's brain. That allows us approximately forty-eight hours to stitch in and get information. When you stitch in your body projects an image of yourself, as if you were actually there."
"In that suit? The one that my mother woke up in," she clarified.
"The one and only."
"What exactly does the suit do? Other than make me look like a badass catwoman."
"Badass catwoman indeed, or as we like to call it in the lab, the Rev 2. It's the badass version of the prior one. But it does serve a functional purpose. The material is a mesh polyester fiber coated in: zinc and blackened nickel over copper. It helps with conductivity between your suit and our sensors."
"So I stitch in, dressed like catwoman. Wait, do I have to wear the ears and stilettos too?"
He let out a good laugh. "Not necessary, no. But if cat ears and stilettos are your thing, I'd save it for Halloween."
"Fair enough. So I what… access and interpret the memories I see? I would say that's impossible, but I guess that's because I've-never-studied-neuroscience-unlike-Cameron." She smirked at him, continually dropping hints as she went. "Plus Maggie told me I've been working with the team for two years."
He narrowed his eyes and wondered just exactly how much Kirsten remembered. That couldn't be coincidence.
"How long have you been with the team, Dr. Smartypants?," she asked.
"Maggie brought me on five years ago, to run the lab and work on perfecting the technology. We ran test stitches for about a year before gathering enough data to get up and running."
"I see. Maggie said the Stitchers program has been developing for the better part of twenty years, and that my parents both worked on developing it." Kirsten pulled up her phone again, and scrolled down farther.
All packed and ready to go? I have a plan to get out of the city for the weekend. We need to talk.
Remember, destroy the bug later. When I'm not over, so it's not as suspicious.
Cameron grabbed his cell phone charger and stuffed that in his bag as well. He nodded and led her out of the bedroom.
"Well I just wanted to stop by to see how you were doing. Would you mind driving me home?," she asked.
"Sure thing," he answered cautiously.
They went down the elevator to his parking garage in total silence.
By the time they got to his car, he couldn't take the suspense anymore. He opened his mouth to ask a question, then promptly closed it. He pulled out his phone and typed a quick question in his notepad to Kirsten, then showing her the screen.
Is it safe to talk now?
She shook her head no. She got out her own phone again, and scrolled farther down. She really had anticipated every scenario.
Not yet. I need to disable the GPS on your phone, so you can't be tracked. I double checked my phone, GPS tracking is off.
Give me your phone. You drive us to Union Station, we're leaving your car there for the weekend.
He nodded and handed over his phone. Luckily he had been to Union Station plenty of times, he knew the way without GPS.
Kirsten worked quickly, disabling both the conventional GPS tracking and the embedded, behind the scenes, tracking. Cameron pulled into the parking structure and Kirsten had her next message up to show him.
We're each getting a ticket to San Diego, it leaves at 8:25pm. Use your credit card, to leave a paper trail.
We'll go inside, then I mapped out a route that will skirt along the security camera's blindspots. We're actually going to get a rental car and drive up to the mountains. I already fabricated ID's for us, and took out cash.
Once we get to the rental car and I sweep that for bugs, and disable their vehicle tracking system, then we can talk freely.
She raised an eyebrow in question, to make sure he understood. He nodded in acknowledgment, and they carried out her very well laid out plans.
It was easier than she thought to get around the security cameras. She couldn't do much about cameras on the street, but she would at least make it difficult for anyone that tracked their movements after the fact.
Cameron waited patiently while Kirsten disabled the vehicle's tracking system. Or he thought he was waiting patiently. She, on the other hand, could feel him staring at the back of her head.
"Calm down, girlfriend. I'm almost done," she said.
She finished within a few minutes, making sure to tuck the wires back into place. "Alright, we're good. We can talk," she said.
Cameron exhaled loudly. "Kirsten! What the heck is going on?!"
She placed a gentle hand on his shoulder. "Cameron, we have a lot to talk about, and we have a few days to really talk things over. But I thought you'd like to know, I remember everything." She couldn't help the grin that spread across her face.
Cameron, on the other hand, didn't look convinced. "You remember? Just like that? My mother said she wasn't sure if you would get your memory back at all, let alone this soon."
"I didn't exactly lose my memory. I was a little foggy after getting out of the stitch, but there was no real memory loss. We have all weekend to get into what's going on, but I can prove it to you. You told me something very important before you closed the corpse cassette on me. I'll tell you what you said, and you tell me what I said. Deal?"
He eyed her suspiciously, but agreed. "Deal."
She ran her hands up to frame his face, running her thumb along his jawline. "I love you."
Cameron let out a shaky breath. Her still present grin seemed to be contagious, because he was beaming as well. "I know," he replied. He reached across the seat, resting both his hands on her knees.
She circled her arms around his neck to pull him closer. "Well played."
"It's really you?," he asked.
"It's really me," she confirmed.
"Then why didn't you say anything after your briefing with Maggie?" He pulled back to bring her hands in his.
"That's where it gets complicated," she started. "No one can know that I remember. Not Maggie, not Linus, no one in the lab. Promise me you won't say anything?"
His eyes went wide. "Of course, I promise. What's going on?"
"My father and your mother have been working together for years, right around when the Stitchers Program started with Maggie, my mother, and Ed. Stinger's been a double agents of sorts, and I'm not entirely clear on why your mother is working with him. I guess she initially helped him out with the neuroscience and nanobot aspect of developing the technology. But my presumption is that her real goal is to get you to leave the program. Didn't you say she's been pushing you to accept an opening at MIT?"
"Well yeah, but I didn't think she would resort to scheming with your father to do it!," he exclaimed. "Wait, what are they holding against you that you need to lie to everyone?"
"My father threatened you, saying that if I didn't cooperate with their plan, that he would kill you and make it look like an accident. Then he said if that didn't work, he would go after Ivy too, because apparently he's the devil incarnate and not above murdering his own daughter. I couldn't risk you."
He almost couldn't believe what he was hearing. But then again, Stinger murdered Blair's son to get a message to Kirsten. "That's just… wow. And your mother, does she know what Stinger's been up to?"
"She assured me that she does not. Although she has a slew of follow up tests with Ayo and your mother. Nothing like evolving the human brain centuries to make you a guinea pig. She's also doing some reconnaissance to figure out more of Stinger's plan."
"Reconnaissance, how?" Granted they had been apart for seventeen years due the stasis pod, but Cameron didn't think Stinger would willingly share his deep, dark secrets, not even with his wife.
"Telepathy," she answered.
"I have to revisit that some other time, because that's the holy grail for a neuroscientist. Studying the changes in synapses and what areas activated to gain that skill."
"You'll have plenty of time to geek out when we're back at work. But even with his threats, I knew I couldn't keep this from you. You'll just have to play it cool until we can fake start a relationship."
"So we're fake dating now?" He teasingly ran his thumb across the back of her hand, and added a wink for good measure.
"No, more like dating in secret." She pulled him in closer, the lips just inches apart. "Do you think you can handle that?"
He could feel her breath on his lips, it was intoxicating. Especially after he had given up all hope of Kirsten remembering the last few years, remembering him. It had only been a few hours, but he wasn't a fan.
"I think I can handle it," he agreed. He closed the gap and pressed his lips lightly to hers. She smiled into the kiss and threaded her fingers in his hair. He deepened the kiss and his arms circled her waist.
Much too soon for his liking, Kirsten pulled back slightly. "I've been wanting to do that all afternoon," she admitted. "And we'll have plenty of time for that this weekend, but we should get going. I figured we could come up with a game plan this weekend, figure out where to go from here. Together?"
He put the car in drive, then interlaced their fingers. "Alright Stretch. Together."