Cammie & Callie: Ouch!

[x-scorpion.livejournal.com]

A chance meeting between Callie and Cammie doesn't clear the air in any way at all.

Callie nodded her head in time with the Italian pop music that was currently playing from her iPod. She should have been doing homework, and she had been, up until the point where she decided to take a break. The weather was still a little too cold for her liking, so instead of taking a walk in the woods as she would have liked, she was left with trolling the hallways. Not really a comparable trade, but beggars can't be choosers. Funny thing was, Callie found her thoughts returning to the problem she was currently struggling with. So absorbed with trying to figure out what she was doing wrong was the young girl that she didn't hear or notice the person coming toward her until their bodies collided and Callie found herself on the floor. "Ouch..."

“Hey, Pinky, you should watch where you’re going,” Cammie said. She was on her way back from the gym. She had one arm akimbo.

"Cammie!" Callie's eyes nearly popped out of her head as she removed the headphones from her ears. She hadn't expected to run into the other girl, mainly because Callie had been avoiding her. Extra care had been taken to ensure this meeting would not happen. But it had, and now Callie had to figure out what to say. "Ummm... I'm sorry."

“Sorry for what, walking?” Cammie said, pulling the other girl to her feet. “Seriously. That’s all there is for you to apologize for her. Oh, and not paying attention. And listening to crap music, but the last is seriously more personal opinion than anything else.

Callie flashed her a grateful smile as she brushed off her skirt. "Thanks." She paused. "You're not mad at me?"

“Sure I am. But killing you accomplishes nothing at all,” Cammie said in a tone of voice that may have been serious or may have been total bullshit. It was one of those tones. She had worked off most of her aggression in the gym.

"So you are mad at me." That wasn't so surprising, really. "Look I'm sorry

“Look, if someone poked around in your past, hit buttons you didn’t want hit and went around telling someone else about it how would you feel? Hmm?” Cammie returned.

"I'd be upset," Callie said after a moment. "I'd feel upset and pretty angry and ya. But I didn't do it to hurt you. I wasn't trying to hurt you Cammie."

Cammie sighed, “Here come with me. Don’t worry, I’m not going to kill you or anything. But I think there’s something you need to hear if you’re really going to get this and I’m not going to tell you in the middle of a hallway.”

There was a solemn nod in reply. "Lead the way."

Cammie took the girl back to her suite. Clouds wasn’t around, which was a good thing. The shared suite wasn’t as bad as it could be, but it was still a bit of a mess and opened the door to her room. Which was actually still pretty neat, “You first.”

Callie stepped through the doorway and into the spartan bedroom and waited for Cammie to enter as well. She didn't feel it appropriate to sit anywhere. So she stood to the side, against the wall, anxiously wringing her hands. "So..."

“Sit down. I have a chair and a bed. You look like you’re waiting for the firing squad,” Cammie said, shutting the door behind her. “I’ll be honest, I really don’t want to tell you this story but the fact you’re walking around with a bad urban legend and half the truth annoys the hell out of me so go ahead and get comfy you’ll be in here for a bit.”

Silently, Callie crossed the room, pulled out the chair, and lowered herself onto it. She crossed her leg, then uncrossed it and crossed the other instead. There. "I know... I know the story I was told isn't the truth. You don't have to do this Cammie. You don't need to tell me anything."

“You’re still walking around with half the truth and I hate that, so sit down and shut up and just listen, alright? First off, you’re a smart kid so I know you know I didn’t beat anyone to death with my shoe, am I right?”

Callie watched her, silently, focusing her mind to concentrate on only what Cammie was saying. She couldn't jump to conclusions here or let her mind wander. She nodded, giving Cammie the answer she was seeking.

“Good, because if you were that stupid I’d have to kill you and save the world the burden of another idiot,” Cammie said with a pause. “Okay, good so you know that. So, how to start this story… Okay, well, here it goes. The town I’m from, is one of those little towns with more cows than people. We were out populated by maple trees that’s how small the town was. But you know the type of place. Everyone in my town knew everyone else. That flier of yours saying I’m in no trouble is bull shit, but I’ll get to that. You following me so far, Pinky?”

"Yeah, the paper said it was one of those small towns up north. Something Falls, right?"

“Grand Falls,” Cammie said. There were small waterfalls near the town that they took the name from. The falls weren’t grand in any sense of the word. But that wasn’t the point, “Our total population was maybe 1600 on a good day. I knew everyone growing up and they all knew me. There was a guy I liked, everyone knew I liked him and consequently we started dating. Still with me, Pinky?”

"Right beside you." Callie pulled her legs up so she was now sitting cross legged on the chair. "Go on."

“So yeah, little over three years ago was the start of my Sophomore year my boyfriend and I decided we’d go to a dance. Because this is what teenagers in high school do. Before this, I was already eating shit that could kill people, but other than that, I didn’t think anything was wrong,” Cammie said. That much was true. “Either way, we were popular and so we were royalty for the night if you get my meaning. And at the dance this turns on,” she said, holding up her left hand.

“This is not a shoe. This is decidedly more effective than any shoe you will ever see. And only one person died that night. And then that crowd that apparently has told other people that I was terrorizing it was running away from or trying to hunt me down. So I left. Now, you’re a smart girl. Even if my parents are ‘totally cool’ with everything that happened, how do you think the rest of the town will be? Seriously.”

The pieces of the puzzle fit neatly together now. It all made sense. Callie figured that the accident that had been reported had more to do with Cammie's powers than with a shoe. But she hadn't known that the boy mentioned was Cammie's boyfriend. "I'm sorry," she whispered when she finally could speak. "I didn't know that he was your boyfriend. I... I can see why you wouldn't want to go back there."

“So, the moral of this little story? Next time you think you have the right to tell someone something? Don’t,” Cammie said simply, her eyes closing for a moment.

Callie furrowed her eyebrows and crossed her arms over her stomach as she thought for a few moments. "No," she stated calmly, her face relaxing. "That's not it Cammie." She slowly rose and stepped toward the other girl, looking down at her as she spoke. "I'm sorry for what happened, like I can't even imagine how awful it must have been to go through that, so I get why you're mad at me. And you're right, I didn't have a right to tell anyone... I had an obligation. An obligation to at the very least the professor. So I told Mister Beaubier. I knew he would know what to do better than I."

“Yeah, for all the good it did him. You know, Pinky, you can take your obligation and shove it. In your shoes, I would’ve kept my mouth shut,” Cammie said and inclined her head a bit, “There’s the door. Know how to use it?”

"What about the good it did you?" Callie wasn't so dense that she couldn't take the explicit direction to get out, but she had listened and now she had some things to say. "I wasn't trying to hurt you, or judge you, or anything Cammie, I actually like you even if you hate my guts. The people here, they're good people they can help you, but they can't do that unless they know. Right? And like what would have happened if, I don't know, someone showed up to arrest you or something. I'm not saying they will, but what about then?"

“Help me what? Raise the dead? You said it yourself, they’re not after me for murder,” Cammie returned. Though a part of her would always think they should be, “That being the case, do you honestly think you did the right fucking thing?”

"They're not. But that doesn't mean something else can't happen and this accident gets brought up. There's like a million and one scenarios that could happen, so neither of us really knows what could happen. On that chance, I know I did the right thing here by telling someone."

“Yeah, and if those million and one scenarios crawl out of the woodwork I’ll handle it on my own. It won’t be anyone here’s responsibility but mine. Because there isn’t a person here who was there that night but me,” Cammie returned.

"You don't get it!" Callie wanted to scream, but instead she remained calm, except for the fact that her hands were rapidly punctuating the air. "You don't have to handle it by yourself. There is an arsenal of people who can and will help you. Who have helped you, right?"

“And I’m already ringing up more of a debt than I can pay back. You’re the one who isn’t getting it,” Cammie remained deathly calm. “Death’s a little different than room and board. You don’t know because you haven’t killed anyone. When you have, you can come back and tell me all this stuff again.”

Callie sighed and stepped back. "This, this isn't getting anywhere. But you know what? I'd rather you hate me and be safe than the alternative. So I'm going to leave now, and pray that nothing ever happens to you that could prove that what I did was the right thing." She slowly made her way toward the door, pulling it shut as she left the room.