Author's Note: I know Carlos and Keira aren't a likely pairing in the show any time soon, but with the way he's been falling to pieces this past season I just can't help it :) I think it could totally happen, especially with the way this new timeline is spooling out. I haven't seen the last 3 episodes of season three yet, aside from reading their summaries, so I'm being deliberately vague on the details. This is probably going to be a short fic (I have to finish Hell's Bells SOME TIME before death!) but it's been chewing at the back of my head for a few weeks now. Seemed like a good excuse to take a break from pharmacology to take a stroll down fantasy lane!
One more thing. Please, please, please, feel free to stop by and leave me a review, those are the kinds of things that keep me writing! Sadly, Keira and the rest of the cast of Continuum aren't mine.
He was nothing. Nobody. Some man from a hospital that came out of nowhere and had Cameron dancing to his tune.
Living in her apartment. Eating her food. Watching her television. Sleeping in her…
Don't go there, Fonnegra.
Scrubbing his eyeballs, Carlos forced his attention back to the case file in front of him. Another day, another dead body. A teenager that died of an overdose of what looked an awful lot like Flash-or so Keira said.
Damn it. Slamming the folder shut, he shoved away from his desk and grabbed his jacket. He needed some air. A drink. A dozen. Anything to wipe the memory of his dead partner's face from his mind.
Anything to make him forget about his new partner that seemed to be anything but.
Slamming his hand on the elevator button, Carlos deliberately ignored the worried glances being thrown his way. He'd be the first to admit that the last couple of weeks, he hadn't been himself. Hell, who would be? After weeks of walking around with a woman who wore his partner's face and his partner's clothes and had his partner's memories but wasn't his partner, and yet was, in all the ways that mattered…hell, that would screw with anybody's head.
And hey, he was nobody special, right? He thought wryly, stepping into the elevator and pushing the button down. Just a 21st century cop. Not a time traveler. Not a genius. Not a millionaire or a CEO or any other red carpet persona that his partner seemed to be spending her time with these days. Hell, in Cameron's world, he was more of a nobody than the nobody she was living with these days.
A nobody that, he was forced to admit, was something to Cameron that he'd never be. He was a part of Cameron's future/past life, the life she'd had before she came here. Another timeline, sure, but still a link to the future she was hoping for.
The life she'd give anything, risk anything to go back to.
Slipping his sunglasses on, Carlos started walking. Didn't matter where. Someplace where he might be able to string together more than two thoughts in his head that didn't center around Keira Cameron.
Slumping back against the building, Keira let her shoulders fall. Brave words. Brave promises. Empty threats. Seemed like that's all she was living on these days. She'd sold her soul to the devil when she signed on the dotted line with the freelancers, and the farther down that rabbit hole she fell the more she realized that like Alice, she was a very, very long way from home.
Unlike Alice, it was highly unlikely someone was going to come along, shake her shoulder and wake her up.
Blinking back tears, Keira forced herself to admit what she'd fought against for the last three years. She wasn't going home. It didn't matter what happened now, the life she'd been clinging on to was gone. Sam was gone. There was nothing for her now. Nothing to hang on to.
"There's no one to hang on for," she whispered, the words jerking a sob out of her. Then another. Then another. Before she knew it, she was crouched on her heels, shoulders pressed against the building, head down, crying deep, gut wrenching sobs for her baby, her husband, her life. Reaching up to her collar, she moved to press the switch that would make her invisible, give her space to grieve without all those eyes on her, give her time to weep for the people she loved. The people she'd lost.
Before her fingers could close on the button that would finally bring her peace, a warm hand wrapped around hers.
"Keira? Keira, what's going on?"
He hadn't realized he'd run into her. He supposed he should have-after all, she'd come across sixty five years and another timeline to be here, with him, what on earth would make him think a couple of blocks were going to do it? He'd heard the sound of someone crying in the alley, and he'd told himself that it was his cop's instinct that made him go and check it out.
He was getting really good at lying to himself these days. Even before he'd turned the corner he'd known what he'd find. After three years of working with her, there were times it seemed like they breathed together-or at least it had, before everything had gone straight to hell. He tried to tell himself that it was different now, but when he saw her curled up against the wall, tears he'd rarely seen her shed rolling down her cheeks while she sobbed like her heart would break, trying to curl in on herself and make herself invisible-literally-he didn't think, just reacted.
In that moment it didn't matter which version of herself she was, or who she had been, or what she'd done, or how different she was from the vulnerable woman he'd known. She was his partner, and she was in pain.
"Keira?" Reaching out, he caught her hand before she could flip the switch on that super suit of hers and put more distance between them. "Keira, what's going on?"
Half expecting her to pull back, as she had so many times in the past few weeks, he was surprised when she threw her arms around his neck and pressed her face into his chest, clinging to him while she sobbed out weeks of pent up pain and frustration.
