Characters: Joe MacMillan, Cameron Howe, Donna Clark, Haley Clark, Joanie Clark
Additional Tags: Fix-It
Summary/Set: Just another Jameron fix-it post-finale, what else.
Disclaimers: I barely own my knickers. When I am writing, it's mainly for my own pleasure. Genre: snippet, romance if you can call it that Pairing: all as canon Note: Funny thing is, I wasn't even into Halt and Catch Fire anymore by the time Season 4 came along. I barely remembered anything from it till I looked at some episodes again recently and boy, was I wrong about everything! But the Jameron ambers would never die, so here we go again.
Chapter 1: Extension
Joe and Cameron. Two sides of the same coin, fated to be perpetually conjoined, connected, pull together for keeps by an elemental force till Doomsday. Naturally, Donna did not formulate it so plainly and definitely in her mind but she certainly did not think it was much of a surprise when Cameron announced about a year into their new collaboration that she would now indeed like to take that self-discovering road trip she had been delaying since Donna stopped her climbing into her truck by presenting her with an idea by the diner. What surprised her even less was that this time Cameron intended to drive all the way to Armonk, New York where they knew from Joe's letters to Haley he had been teaching.
Donna of course knew her friend very well. Outside the world of algorithms, startup management and hypertext, Cameron was very indecisive and volatile. Therefore, the brunette didn't trust that her friend would make it to the East Coast without becoming either insecure enough or sufficiently distracted to change her mind. One thing for sure, Cameron will never get to her intended destination, not without help. It was why she stole the phone number from her daughter's notebook and called Joe. "How long are you intending to punish Cameron for," she snapped as soon as she heard the unmistakable voice of the man who had once changed all their lives by storming into them.
"What? Donna?" The lecturer recognised the voice immediately as well, "what's wrong?"
"No, nothing's wrong, I mean not anything that wasn't wrong before. I just..I just need to talk to you."
"You haven't called for a year, so.." Joe had always called the woman out on her bullshit.
"I do listen you know when Hayley talks about you. And thank you for convincing Joanie to go to college after all."
"Yeah, well it wasn't for you but you're welcome anytime," the lecturer clearly cared about the whole family very much judging by the tone only as well.
"Am I so bad?" Donna had always been aware that she wasn't the greatest at handling relationships either.
"No, not by what I hear lately."
"So you do hear about me too."
"And Cameron. Hayley loves working with her, always has.."
"Huh. These girls are amazing.." The mother was referring to the fact they were major factors in her holding on to positive emotions, "you've always been great with them."
"So what do you want, Donna?" While the question wasn't as passive-aggressive hostile as it once would have been, it was certainly still reluctant and wary.
"I'll cut to the chase." The engineer understood their awkwardly caring relationship enough as well to brush over useless pleasantries, "Cameron has taken off. She had been planning this road trip for a while, can you believe it? Across the country and I don't know, I just worry it won't go well."
"Donna. Cameron can take care of herself."
"She's driving to New York." Donna dropped the bomb.
"Why would she drive to New York all the way from California."
"You know why."
"She might drive on for a while, but she'll never make it." Joe knew Cameron well enough too to be aware of how changeable and doubtful the younger woman was.
"Well, I would be surprised if she did. She calls me though, regularly cause of a project we've been working on. I can tell you where she is right now on the road and I can tell you where she will be tomorrow night. You could fly in, I could maybe get you a more exact location like a motel.."
"Donna." Joe interrupted, somewhat irritated, "you do know she's the one who left me, right? And not for the first time. We've been here before, nobody knows better than me."
"But Jesus Christ, do you know that this is the closest Cameron will ever come to shedding herself for you, right? A blind man could see she's miserable without you. I've made that mistake before, lost sight of what was great because it was right in front of me. Look Joe, I'll send you a fax when I know an address for the place and you'll do with the information what you like. Just look at it and see."
"You and your faxes." Fateful faxes one might say. "Bye Donna," Joe wanted the conversation topic over with as the thought of Cameron would never come to not hurt. He also knew that he did not want to be convinced because if he listened to one more word, he would be on the next flight.
Tbc
Chapter 2: Convergence
Cheyenne, Wyoming wasn't a city Joe ever had on the list of places he would have wanted to visit, but the regional airport had reasonable enough connections and Donna had managed to get sufficiently viable information for Joe to attempt to locate Cameron. He slowed the rental pick-up down as he needed to scrutinize every trailer in the park her on and off girlfriend for over a decade had called from, wondering why he was doing this to himself once more. Of course Donna had been right. Once the fax was in his hands, nothing would stop him from booking the next flight, even if he had to take a sudden temporary leave of absence from the university.
While the trailer park Cameron had stopped at was huge and covered a large area of land, Joe was pretty sure he was looking for a more secluded location, but one that was conversely, in close range to somewhere where it was possible to connect to the web. It took only two short conversations with residents and Joe has already spotted Cameron's dark green Ford in a spot under the trees not very unlike where her own trailer stood west of Bonny Doon in California.
"I'm pretty sure Kronos is not supposed to faint every time he sees a lizard," Joe announced with a small cautious smile as the door opened, referring to the developer's latest game.
"You should probably play a different character for starters," Cameron countered, hair messy and still in pajamas, "Kronos isn't your style and you need to work up to the alien," she advised. Leaning against the doorframe, she started wide-eyed into her visitor's eyes. "What's happening, Joe?" It was a fair enough question to ask in regards to their extremely complicated relationship, "why did you come?" She asked cautiously, frozen in place.
"I couldn't just let you trek across the country aimlessly."
"It was not aimless. I've always planned a complete coast to coast."
"Don't I know. But I was supposed to go with you."
"Joe, you disappeared without as much as saying goodbye. What are you doing here." Her smile was nervous and insecure this time. His sudden appearance could only mean one thing, but still it was hard to believe and too good to be true.
"What I should have done before," he stepped closer, extending her a hand she could take to descend the few stairs of the trailer, the bottom of which she remained standing, her body a hairbreadth from him, looking up into his warm, hungry eyes. "It's so good to actually see you."
"We don't work well together," Cameron reiterated the same doubt they've unquestionably both battled with every day and every time they've thought of the other.
"Nobody knows better than me," Joe employed his mischievous side with a teasing smile, "but who said anything about work."
"We did a ton wrong, you know what I mean," the programmer batted at his chest, shaking her head. "You know, despite appearances and what anyone might be thinking, I wasn't on this trip to go to see you."
"No?" That confused Joe a little.
Cameron swallowed hard, "no. I was going to New York, stalk around the university, find out if you've found someone yet. Who would have your kids, like Tom did. I wasn't just going to storm right in. Not remembering how Gordon used to always tell me off for that," she gave a shaky laugh, "he was protecting you."
"He was an amazing friend," Joe's expression turned reminiscent as he slowly turned, still holding her hand, starting off on a walk with her on the mountain pass as if it would have been the most natural thing in the world. Experience said that no matter where they've left their explosive relationship, they could always pick it up at a drop of a hat.
"He was warned me not to come back into your life when you're trying to move on and while I've never really done it intentionally, well, I thought about it."
Joe's reminiscing smile took on a revering note and he chuckled, "I don't remember exactly but he once gave me this funny allegory about the two of us, you and I being trains who think that just because we're both trains, we would be good together."
"But we collide instead," Cameron agreed, nodding.
The New Yorker laughed again, "you would think that's how it would go, but instead he said we were both freight trains carrying explosives and then collide."
"That's Gordon for you," Cameron's smile remained sad in remembrance of their friend.
"Well, I appreciate you taking Gordon's advice, but.." He stopped so he could turn to face her. "It's always been you. Gordon didn't know that we've proved we could make it work."
"I still don't want kids Joe, and I don't see that changing. They..it scares me. There is no point to anything without me putting that out there."
"I'd rather have you, kids or no kids," Joe took hold of both of her hands and pulled her closer.
"We can't keep doing this to each other," Cameron was still doubtful.
"We won't, we have learnt a lot, we have matured, didn't we? Who would have thought, huh? And even if we're still bad for each other in the end, which I doubt, I'd rather go on the merrygoround with you, than not have you in my life."
Cameron snorted, "we're hopelessly incurable, aren't we."
"Well, I'm here. I can keep talking till I convince you?"
"No need," Cameron's hands already sneaked around his torso and she rested her head against his chest, his heartbeat grounding her, stopping the world from spinning.
The End.
Afterword
Please drop by the archive and comment to let the author know if you enjoyed their work!