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Camille took the time she got away from the AM very seriously. It wasn't often that she managed to get cleared to go outside, since she was such a valuable asset to the AM and Wadsworth wasn't one that was keen on letting high level atypicals walk around in the world, so she tried to see as many people as she could every time that she went out. Frequently when she was able to get out, she would go see her friend Judith, who also lived in New York. She had been friends with Judith for a number of years, and when she had been taken in by the AM, she hated that she had to lie so profusely to her best friend about what was happening to her. The other problem with being taken in by the AM was the fact that it was fairly clear (or at least so Camille thought) that Judith had feelings for her, and that she reciprocated those feelings as well.
But while Camille was confined within the walls of the AM, she had grown close with one of the other high level atypicals, a man named Mark who seemed to be able to mimic the abilities of other atypicals, but that was the only power he had on his own. So once Wadsworth and the scientists figured that out, they began testing him out with as many others as they could, to see what the extent of his abilities were, and whether or not he could change the abilities once he had them, how long they would last, from how far away, blah blah blah. They had started pairing him with Camille more and more frequently, which meant that they had plenty of time to talk when they would travel. It was then that Camille had realized she was stuck in the middle of two possibilities: she was on the precipice of two different relationships and she had to choose which one she valued and wanted to pursue more.
So that day when they had given her some time to go outside before going on a trip with Mark, she decided that she needed to talk to Judith, and clarify the meaning of their relationship. When she had called Judith, she had sounded relieved to hear the sound of Camille's voice, and that made her realize how long it had really been since she had last been outside. She would have to have a discussion with Agent Green when they got back about that, but for now she would have to accept his distanced observation of her actions.
They met at a coffee shop, one that ended up being mostly empty besides the two of them and Agent Green, but it wasn't completely conspicuous, since there were a few other patrons there, mostly on their laptops with headphones on, ignoring what was going on in the rest of the world. They sat down with their drinks and Judith immediately started with the questioning. "Camille, you gotta tell me what's been going on with you. Where have you been all this time? I've only seen you a couple of times over the past year, what happened?"
Camille saw Agent Green look up from his own laptop, and she made the split decision that it would be more work for him if he made a scene, so she could really say whatever she wanted. "I've been working for a secret government agency. But, it's not really working. More like being worked on." When Judith sat with a blank stare, Camille decided to back up and start from the beginning. "You know how whenever I would sleep over, I would tell you about the amazing dreams I had? And how they always took place in some ancient time, some far away place?" Judith nodded, but slowly. She saw Green's typing speed increase as he shook his head, but it was clear that her assessment was right, he wasn't going to do anything that was going to cause a scene. "I was actually there. Like my body wasn't, but the rest of my brain was, I had a body there, and I would genuinely be exploring all of those places, I swear." Judith looked like she was barely holding in a laugh, but Camille's face was dead serious.
"Wait, so you're not kidding? You don't just watch too much of the history channel?"
"How many people can honestly say that they've talked to Napolean? How many people can say that they've really seen the pyramids being built?" Camille didn't want to get angry, but Judith's clear unwillingness to believe in what she was saying was starting to piss her off.
"I mean, anything's possible in dreams, Cam. I don't know what else to tell you."
Camille sighed, looking around, trying to think of what else she could say to convince Judith that she wasn't lying, and hadn't actually been spending the past year in the psych ward instead. "Look, okay, there's this boy? He can literally spit fire from his fingers. Like spiderman but instead like, fireman, okay? And there are other people that can read minds, those are pretty commonplace honestly. Or people who can tell you exactly how your feeling, even when you don't want to admit it, because they're empaths, and feel exactly what you're feeling. There's one girl that, when she gets really upset, which is a lot more often than you might think, she starts to make things float, like she turns off gravity." Judith had the same skeptical stare again. "What? Why don't you believe me?"
"What, is there a really buff dad with super strength? A woman whose body is super stretchy? And their kids, super speedy and invisible girl? You literally sound like you're describing the Incredibles. Or maybe X-Men, probably more like X-Men, Cam."
Judith groaned in frustration. "Why couldn't I have brought someone with me! Then you might actually believe me and not think I'm full of shit."
"I mean, I guess it's possible. Movies are based off of real life and shit, right? There's nothing to say you're completely wrong, I just. I feel like I would know if my best friend had superpowers, you know?"
"I mean. I guess. So what've you been up to since I last saw you?" Camille figured if she switched the topic of conversation, maybe she'd have time to prove things to Judith later on, hopefully before she had to drop the bomb on her.
"Oh, you know, writing, avoiding my parents as much as possible. I've done some modeling for photographers and painters, whatever gets the bills paid without having to ask my parents for money. No one's really caught my eye in a while though, so I've really only been talking with clients and my roommates when I don't see you." This wasn't good news to Camille. "You said there was something really important you needed to talk about, was it just that you've decided to become Jean Grey? Or did you have something else that you needed to talk about as well?"
She had told Green about her plan when they were in the AM provided car on the way to the cafe. He sounded.... Not necessarily against the idea, if anything he sounded somewhat in support of it. He wasn't sure if she was going about it the right way, but she didn't really care about if Agent Green thought she was doing the right thing or not. She knew what needed to be done, and he seemed as though he didn't think she should get romantically involved with another atypical, but really, who else would understand her so well? Obviously Judith didn't even believe her at this point. "I, yeah. I had something else I think I need to talk with you about. Can we, uh. Could we go somewhere else to talk about it though?" Judith had said this was her favorite coffee shop, and Camille didn't want to ruin it for her with negative memories. Agent Green looked up, shaking his head, but she could see the understanding in his eyes even though his job was telling him to say no. "Like, are there any nice parks nearby? Or maybe we could go for a walk down by the river?" Judith said something about a park just a couple of blocks over, that had some pretty trees and really just was inhabited by homeless people and old people who had nothing better to do than feed the birds. Camille said that sounded nice, and pulled out her AM appointed phone so that she could send a message to Agent Green so that he wouldn't think she was trying to run away from him. "I dont wanna ruin her fave coffee shop, thats why i said we should go to the park. Dont be creepy when following us but also i swear theres no running away happening here." Agent Green received it, and Camille saw him read it as she and Judith were walking out the door. She looked at him and winked before walking out the door behind Judith, leaving it up to Green to figure out what he was going to do about her changing location on him.
----
They couldn't see him while they walked to the park, but at one point Camille received a text saying "Your phone has a tracker anyways, I'll be there in a few minutes" which was probably just Green's way of telling her "oh even if you get rid of the phone, we'll know you're trying to run and also you probably have a tracker in you as well." The two women talked about random things as they walked, reminding each other of old stories. Camille always loved to remind Judith that had it not been for her and her parents' quick thinking, they'd both probably be in jail right now for that one time on the boat, but today was less focused on that, more focused on other stories, including a few that Judith had never told Camille about. When they arrived at the park and Camille saw swings, she insisted that they go over and swing for at least five minutes, since an empty playground was the best time for adults to actually enjoy the play structures of their youth. So they did swing for a few minutes, until Camille got bored and started to climb around the rest of the small play structure. She didn't want to have the conversation with Judith, she was having doubts about whether or not she was doing the right thing. Judith could tell, though. She stayed seated on the swings while Camille tried to talk her onto the rest of the playground, eventually giving up and returning back to the swings where they had started. "Come on, Judith, what's wrong?"
"You're avoiding whatever you need to talk about. That makes me even more worried about what you need to talk about." Camille's face must have visibly fallen as she sat back down on the swing next to Judith's. "Are you okay, Camille? Are you being tracked by someone, is that why you made up the stuff about the government? Are you actually in a psych ward? Cause if you are, you can just say that, Cam, I get it."
Camille looked down at her feet and pushed off a little, causing the swing to move just enough that she wasn't stationary while she talked. "No, Jude. I'm not actually in a psych ward, I was being honest about the secret government agency. I wouldn't make something like that up. And I mean, I am being followed, but it's okay, because it's a pretty chill dude from the agency, like he's not an asshole security guard like you see in movies. He's chill, he just needs to make sure I come back at the end of the day because I'm "important" or whatever."
"Okay so I'm confused, like what's wrong then? Are you pregnant? Are you getting married? Are you desperately trying to signal for me to get you away from this government agency? Because if so, I am nowhere near as good at reading clues as you think I am, so you're gonna have to make it a little clearer."
Camille laughed, shaking her head. "No no no. It's nothing like that. Well, I mean, not completely. I just." She pushed her feet into the ground to get the swing to stop moving while she turned to look at Judith. "Jude you know I care about you a lot, right? Like, you realize you're probably my best friend or something, even if we don't talk nearly as much anymore?"
"I mean, yeah? You're my best friend too, Cam. Why is that important?"
Camille looked up at the clouds overhead and spoke to them instead of to the woman sitting on the swing next to her. "Well, because, I need to be honest with you. And I don't want out friendship to be over because of the words that I might say, I still want you to be my best friend, and still consider you my best friend. I just. I've had feelings for you for a lot longer than I think even I realize, and I don't know if you've had some of those same feelings, but I've definitely interpreted it as feelings and that's not the problem. This is not being brought up because I think you might possibly have feelings for me, even if that thought is probably influenced by the fact that I have feelings for you. But I need to be honest just in case you do have feelings for me, because I also have a lot of feelings for another guy that's being kept by the same agency that's keeping me. His name is Mark, and before you ask, his special super power type thing is the fact that he can mimic other people's powers when he's near them. So when he's near the boy who can shoot fire out of his fingers, Mark can do that too. If he's near a mind reader, it can get really weird because usually mind readers aren't the ones getting their minds read. And Jude, he's really sweet and I feel like if you were to meet him under any other circumstances you'd really like him. He's super like, witty type funny, he loves photography, he's silly while he still loves to sit inside and read on a rainy day instead of insisting on doing something. He's the type of person that you would want to take on a road trip with you because he just knows so many things about so many different topics and yeah." She paused, taking a moment to breathe now that the worst of what she had to say was over. "They've been pairing us up a lot recently, trying to figure out how both my ability works as well as how his ability works. And I wanted to tell you that. I wanted to tell you that because you're my best friend, and you're the kind of person I tell these kinds of secrets and details, but also I needed to be honest with you. Okay?" She wasn't sure if it was really the right place or time for a question like that, but she finally looked down from the clouds and over towards Judith. Judith had turned away from the swing that Camille was sitting on, which meant that Camille couldn't see if there was something wrong with her. "I'm.... I'm sorry, Judith. I didn't wanna have to go through this right now. But there was just. I had a gut feeling that. I needed to do it now or else I wasn't gonna do it." Judith stayed facing the other direction, not looking back at Camille. "Please, Judith, say something, anything."
When Judith turned around Camille's gut dropped. There were tears down her face, taking her makeup with it. "I.... I was gonna do the opposite today, Cam. I was all ready to ask you out because I could tell. I could tell you had feelings too. And when you had something important to talk about, well...." She chuckled a bit before sniffling and getting back to her point. "Well I thought you and I were gonna be on the same page, not reading separate books." She was on the verge of sobbing and Camille could tell, but she couldn't figure out the best was to comfort her in this situation. "So I'm sorry too, Cammy. I'm sorry too. I'm sorry I thought we had more going for us than we did." She stood up from the swings and started to walk, the opposite direction from where the coffee shop they had come from was.
Camille got up and started to walk after her. "Wait Jude, come ba-"
"No!" Judith turned around and the tears were flowing even stronger than before, choking back sobs. "I need to go, you go back to your agent, and your weirdo boy, I don't wanna ever wanna see you again!" She couldn't hold the sobs back anymore, and started running in the other direction away from Camille. All Camille could do was stand there as the tears started to flow down her own face, each one telling her that she made the wrong choice, what if Mark doesn't like her back, any number of other factors that she should have thought about before she opened her big dumb mouth.
After a minute of her standing there crying, she felt a hand on her shoulder. She hit it off her shoulder, prepared to have to deal with some kind of pervert that was trying to take advantage of her emotionally compromised state, but it was just Agent Green, standing there with a sympathetic expression on his face. Seeing a familiar face did nothing good for her, and instead of yelling or saying something snarky and mean, like she would usually be inclined to do, she just leaned forward into his shoulder to cry. It wasn't a gesture he was necessarily expecting, but he wasn't really surprised by it either. He brought his arms up around her in a loose but comforting gesture, and she squeezed him tight. After about five seconds, she realized what she was doing and who she was with, and pushed him away a little bit, and wiped at her face. She could see the tear stains she had put in the chest of his shirt, which made her feel a little guilty, but overall didn't care too much. She mumbled a half-hearted sorry to him, and he responded by saying "I already called the driver, he's parked over at the end of the block. I take it you're ready to head back?" She nodded, and he put his arm around her shoulders while they walked to the car.
----
When they arrived back at the AM she had calmed down a bit, but more in the fact that she felt numb above all else. When they came to get her for the experiments of the night, she didn't put up any kind of fight, which they reported to Wadsworth as soon as they got to the trial room where she, Agent Green, a handful of other scientists, and Mark Bryant were waiting for her. Mark wasn't a natural empath, but from the time he had spent around them he could tell that there was something wrong with her immediately upon her walking into the room. "Wadsworth what did you do to her, did you hurt her?" he immediately started asking of her, demanding answers.
Ellie took a step back from Mark, surprised by his outburst. "Calm down, Bryant. No, I didn't, I have no idea what's wrong with her, and the fact that she's this upset is concerning for the nature of the test. Camille, are you alright?" Wadsworth turned the questioning on her, but didn't wait for an answer before turning to Agent Green. "Owen, what happened when you took her outside today?"
"She had a discussion with a friend of hers that didn't go....Well. I didn't pay too close of attention to the details of the conversation, since it seemed to be of a highly personal nature, but it did not go the way she wanted it to I think it's safe to say, and has been rather upset since returning to the facility, Director." Agent Green avoided eye contact with Camille while he said all this, trying to give just enough details so that Ellie wouldn't ask her any questions about it, without giving too many so that Camille couldn't trust him to keep a secret. Just because he didn't say it all out loud right now didn't mean that it didn't all go in his report that he had submitted to Wadsworth as soon as they had gotten back.
"And why didn't you mention this to me earlier, Owen?" The tension in the room immediately became palpable.
"How about we don't mess around with your shitty spying on us for now and focus on who matters here?" Mark retorted, walking from where he was standing over to Camille, lightly grasping her by the shoulders. "Camille, you feel good enough to do this? Because if you don't, just tell me and I'll make sure they don't make you do this right now."
She had kept her gaze at the ground until this point, when she looked up at Mark and saw the amount of care in his eyes. Any doubts she may have had earlier about whether or not he cared about her immediately vanished out the windows, because there's no way he could look at her like that and not care about her, right? "No, it's fine, we can do this, let's just get it over with."
----
Once the situation for today's test had been thoroughly over-explained to the two of them, Camille took the two of them on a little trip. She had been here before, a number of times, but she wasn't sure she had ever been here with Mark before. There were certain places that tended to come back to her based on how she was feeling, and 1812 England was one of the places she went to a lot when she was facing big decisions, when she needed to think long and deep about something. She looked over at Mark and saw him walking towards her. He stopped just in front of her, putting one hand on her shoulder and the other under her chin, forcing her to look up at him so he could look at her face. They spent a few moments like that in silence before Mark asked "What happened?"
She broke away from him, walking towards a particular tree. "I don't wanna talk about it," she called back at him.
He stayed where he was for a moment, but then followed her over to her tree and sat down next to her. "Cam, where are we?"
"England."
"What year is it?"
"1812."
"Why are we here?" The question made her pause.
"What do you mean?"
"You already know exactly when and where we are, and you knew exactly where to sit under this tree to be comfortable. You know this place, which means that - at least with you - there's a reason we're here. What does this place mean to you?"
She looked over at him before leaning into him and sighing. "You know me too well at this point, Mark. This is my thinking place. I come here when I need to think about things, and when I need to make decisions. I guess in this case I need to think about the decision that I already made today in the park, but that's.... Complicated. Even more so with you here."
"Why do I make it more complicated?"
"Mark I don't know if I have the energy to have this conversation twice in one day, honestly."
The silence hung there for a few minutes. "Can I guess?"
"Guess what?"
"What you had to talk to your friend about?"
"I'd really rather you didn't."
"Why not?"
"Because you're part of the reason I had to have that discussion." She said the words before she thought about them, realizing only afterwords that she had said too much, have given away too many clues.
He sat, looking forward, out across a field, thinking. "What's your friend's name?"
She decided to stop playing games with him. If he wanted to know the details about how shitty of a friend she was, she might as well let him find them out and ruin all of her life at once. "Judith. Judith Ford."
"She pretty?"
She wasn't expecting him to ask right out like that, but Mark was never someone to play around the truth for too long. He'd get bored with it otherwise, and honestly, it was just another one of the things she liked about him. "Very."
"So why did you tell her no?" This conversation had moved even more quickly than her conversation with Judith had, which was not something she was emotionally prepared for.
"I.... Didn't realize she was asking any questions when I told her no. I just wanted to tell her the truth - I had feelings for her and someone else, but I was deciding to pursue the feelings I had for the someone else. I told her I didn't want to lose her friendship, and she said she never wanted to see me again. So we'll see. I'll give her some time to cool off, but then I'll have to talk to her again. She's my best friend, I don't want to let this ruin our friendship."
Mark nodded, processing through what she was saying. "So who's the someone else?"
She knew he wanted to hear the words from her mouth directly, but she wasn't going to give him the satisfaction. She smiled. "Oh, you know, just some guy."
He laughed. "Wow, just some guy?"
She laughed with him, and she instantly felt lighter than she had all day. "Yeah, you know. You're totally average guy. Makes jokes, likes to take people's photos, kind of snarky though, has a lot of attitude sometimes." She thought she was just going to describe him through insults, but once she started saying all the things that she liked about him, she couldn't just stop at the ones that should could turn into jokey cliches. "But at the same time, he's sweet, and it's clear that he actually cares about me as a person. He knows how to make things feel better when everything just feels cloudy, and he's the kind of person who you just don't get tired of, like I could spend hours - probably even days if I had to - with him, and he doesn't even have to repeat his jokes. He's no nonsense when it comes to the things that matter to him, but even then if he's not angry a little bit of nonsense can creep in, which is just endearing, you know?"
She turned her head to look up at him to see him beaming back at her. He reached up with his hand to tilt her face to a more amenable angle and -
Something felt wrong. She immediately curled up into a ball, clutching her stomach. Whatever they had done back in the lab, it was wrong, it was bad, and there was no way for her to focus enough to get the two of them back to the lab. Mark was immediately worried, trying to figure out what was wrong with her, but she couldn't put any sounds together to make words, only screams and whimpers of pain. He pulled her into his lap, holding her close, which did actually make her feel marginally better, but this was something that gave off an immediacy that neither of them was prepared to handle. She gritted her teeth, biting back the pain just long enough to say "Mark. Get. Us. Back."
His worry switched to panic in a split second. Just because he was theoretically able to get them back doesn't mean he had actually managed to any of the numerous times that had him try. "I'm trying, I'm trying. It's okay Cam, it's okay, I'm gonna get us back, it's gonna be okay, just hold on." Just after he said that, she stopped squirming as much to try and negate the pain, and became uncannily still. "Camille? Camille?" He leaned over her to get a look at her face, and it had gone calm. Her hands were still grasped over her stomach, but there was no real strength behind them. "Camille, no no no no no, hold on hold on I'm gonna get us back it's gonna be great it's all gonna be okay just." He grabbed her hand, and tilted her face to look at him. "Hold on, Camille."
He closed his eyes to focus, trying with all his might to get them back to the present, but when he opened his eyes again, hers were closed. He was grabbing her hand, but there was no force put back into his. He looked out at his surroundings.
It was rural England. It was 1812. And now, he was stuck there. Completely, and utterly, alone.