Author's note: Coose isn't mine, but they are the sweetest couple in Step Up 3. (:

Story Note: I set this freshly after their graduation. There aren't much direct references to the time period though!

Btw the basic story idea isn't mine, it comes from Kate- Emma and her story: Step Up 4: Play It Your Way. Check it out! It's an intriguing fic I'm hooked on too now. Thanks Kate- Emma!

This chapter is dedicated to the few writers I've seen in Step Up 3 who've been writing Moose/Camille stuff and reviewing this story faithfully! x-Whizzified-Magic-x, Kate-Emma, and ahkuellerks. Heart you guys!

"I'm going to Philedelphia."

Her grip on the cup she's holding slackens and the cup falls, hot chocolate spilling everywhere and the cup smashing at her feet and the scalding liquid puddles around her feet, but she can barely feel it, her eyes are fixated on him and there is a sort of insane panic surging up in her. He can't be leaving. No he can't. It's just not possible. No way would Moose, her best friend, her boyfriend leave without her. He moves to pull some kitchen roll from behind her, but she stops him effectively with an outstretched arm and she grounds out each word with all the pressure that she can feel building up in her body. "Don't you move, Robert Alexander. Explain."

He looks at her and he hates the way her eyes are hooded over in hurt. He hates the way her hands are curled into fists at her sides and how she looks like she could implode at his very touch. She looks very small, very frail against the backdrop of her kitchen and he wishes that there was a way that this could happen without the both of them falling apart. Already he can feel himself weakening-does he really need to go to Philedelphia? Can't he just stay here with her?- and he knows that it will take a hell lot of courage, guts and strength from him even just to tell her why.

"Cam. Please calm down." He measures his tone delicately, in the hopes that it will calm her down but she looks even more furious if possible and his heart sinks further at what looks like an invisible mountain he's pushing her up… and inevitably, one of them will fall and crash.

"Explain to me, why you have to go to Philedelphia." She doesn't have to add the last word, alone, because it hangs already in the room, an unspoken weight in the atmosphere of the room, a vacuum that sucks out all oxygen. Maybe that would explain why she's trying so hard to keep her breaths steady and she forces herself not to cry. She can't. She won't. She feels flares of hurt, like little bombs setting themselves off in her chest and she bites her lip so hard she practically can taste the metallic sliver of blood. "Tell me why!"

Her voice has risen to a dangerously high level now and he talks. There's a dance academy there. Recruiting teachers. He loves New York, he does. But something's just calling him to that job. He can't explain it any more than anything else, but he knows from the moment he set his eyes on that advert, it was meant for him. He leaves out the fact that he hesitated to even consider it because of her. Her, his only reason for wanting to stay in New York besides the Pirates. He cannot imagine his life without her. Yet he can't afford to be selfish, to pull him away from the life that she's always wanted and has here, right now, in New York City. She has her dream job in a PR company, and he knows she's so happy here, to rip her away isn't going to be part of his plan.

She watches him as he talks and some of the tension drains away, out her body, but leaks out her eyes in hot tears that she cannot stop. She knows him. She knows that look in his eyes, that tone that he uses only when he's determined that he wants that one thing in the world… and how he would do anything to get it and no one else could stop him. She saw it when they were eight and he was convinced he could backflip off the balcony of her house and stick the landing (he ended up with a broken leg and fracture arm); she saw it when he was going to break up with Sophie, she saw it when he was pulling the Pirates and the MSA crew together for the World Jam last year. And now, this.

He stops talking and he is horrified by the tears flowing down her cheeks. He moves towards her but she stops him with one hand before he can get close enough to pull her to him or to even touch her. He does not like this. He does not like it at all, but he gets the very odd sensation that this is a very delicate moment and make one wrong move, he could blow the whole situation sky-high or bigger than it already is.

She tucks one arm into her side and still holding him at bay she angles her face down so her chestnut hair falls forward to hide her face. There is silence in the kitchen for a while, other than her trying to swallow back her tears inconspicuously and the loud, rhythmic ticking of the clock. He tries again, "Camille, honey, please."

Her heart breaks all over again at that word. She loves it when he uses endearments with her, and she's always heard it in varying tones of teasing, laughter, love- but never with such aching tenderness as this, Moose rarely does tender with her, and the tears gush faster and faster as she knows what she has to do.

She licks her dry lips even as her tears trace her jaw and drip down to the linoleum and she inches her sneaker forward to hide it. "Go." Her hand drops from where it's still holding him away from her and she folds her both arms in, still shielding her face.

"Go? Go where? Cam," He cannot hide the panic that colours his every word now and he takes a tentative step forward- only to have her back away from him as if he is a dangerous monster, and his heart twists, spiralling him even deeper into worry, panic. "Cam, stop this please. I… We can go together. We can go after…"

"No."

She shakes her head and finally, finally lifts her eyes to meet his and he is struck by the tragic beauty of her tear stained face. "I know you." She tries bravely for a small smile, and it grows wistful. "I know you, Moose Robert Alexander." She tries to hide her trembling hands by tucking them under her armpits and backs away a few more steps just for safety. "I know you. And your mind, your heart won't stop wondering until you've done it."

He is silent. It is true. She knows him better sometimes than himself he'd swear and that is true. But not this way; he doesn't want to lose her in the process of it all. He steps forward then and she retreats even more, "Cam please."

"I want you to go." Her voice is stronger now. "We've virtually never been apart." She stops to swallow, "And maybe… I think it'd be best for the both of us. See whether we can… be our own person. On our own." Her voice breaks then and she turns it into a cough that is not quite a cough, but a sob.

He cannot comprehend what she has just said, he cannot understand it, he doesn't understand anything at all, why he wanted to go to that blasted place is a mystery to him now. All he knows is that he just wants to hold her in his arms and maybe things will come to him better. He just needs to feel her in his arms and everything will be okay. She will make it better. "Cam, please. Let's just stop talking, just, come here, let me…"

She shakes her head then and her eyes are widened and she backs away to the other side of the kitchen counter, almost like they are playing a game of tag like they do some Saturdays in her dorm room, only this time it's so gravely unlike those crazy, fun-filled moments. "I can't."

"Why not?" He is aware that he sounds so desperate; if it weren't him in this situation, he might have laughed at the dude who sounded and looked as panicked as he feels but this is life. This is him. And the thought strikes him with the force of a stone and he is very afraid.

"I…. I just can't." She looks away then, not wanting to say that if she touches him, if she goes to him, she may just very well change her mind. She will not touch him. She will not look at him. The sooner he is gone from this place, then can she crack and let everything else flow out. "Please, Moose. Just… leave."

"No way!" It bursts out of him and he realizes that he is freaking, amazingly, horribly close to tears himself and it startles even himself. "Camille Gage. You better get your ass over here right now, if not I'm going to get shit pissed." His voice grows hard and she knows he means it but she is silent, pulling her lips in, and warning herself- no way. She cannot say anything. She will not move.

"Camille Andrea Gage!"

She looks at the ground, "Please leave, Moose." She says this quietly to her shoes, and he hears this, disbelief, anger mingling into one huge hurt.

"Fine!" He never gets angry but he is now. He is angry. Hell he's beyond angry. She wants him to leave? Him? Fine. He doesn't need her too. He'll let her be the childish one to chase him away without them both even sitting down to have the mature conversation he envisioned. He turns on his heel and his anger melts a little, hurt choking him now but he takes each step out the door and slams it.

The next thing she knows, he's gone in a swoosh of wind and a banging of the door and his fresh fury left behind in his wake, it hurts like hell, oh God, worse than hell even, and she crumples to the floor and all the sobs that she has inside of her bursts out like a dam just broken and she knows that this is the end and the thought makes even more tears come faster and harder, like a hurricane spun out of control.

Ouch. I hate leaving things like these! ): Review if you're horribly sad for Camille and Moose. ): ):