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Cam joins the force to pay the bills. Barely out of pre-med, she’s drowning in loans, and she needs the money. Knows the pay is solid; half her family is NYPD. Knows, too, that she could use the distraction.
Her mother’s loss is still a fresh wound, barely scabbed over.
She lands close to home, at the five-five in the Bronx. Lives with her dad and kid sister to save money, even though Felicia won’t stop sneaking into her room to steal her makeup and her clothes. Rides patrol with the other rookies, and doesn’t tell them that when she goes home at night, she pulls out her organic chemistry and anatomy textbooks, reading through them in the dark so she won’t have forgotten anything once she’s saved up enough for medical school.
Cam meets Liv on their first day on the job. They crossed paths once or twice at the Academy, but they never really spoke. Liv’s from Manhattan; a professor’s kid, people used to whisper. Columbia. Kids like that don’t usually become cops. Cam’s dad is a mechanic, her mother was a nurse. She got through college on scholarship, working part-time jobs.
Still, she and Liv get along. They’re the two female rookies in the unit, and Sergeant Smythe takes them both under her wing. Teaches them how the old boys’ club operates, how to survive.
Liv’s the first person on the force who she tells about med school. About wanting to be a doctor, about how this is all temporary, for her. Liv looks over at Cam and tells her she thinks that’s amazing, and Cam feels a weight slip off her chest. When Liv tells her about her mother, about wanting to join Special Victims someday, Cam tells her there’s no better person for the job and means every word.
Three years later, they’re in the locker room, and Cam hands Liv a thick envelope with shaking hands. Asks her to open it, tells her she can’t bring herself to do it. That she needs someone to put her out of her misery.
Liv tears into the seal and pulls out the letter. Her face breaks out in a grin, and she wraps Cam up in a hug, squeezing tight.
/
She leaves New York for residency down in D.C. and meets Andrew. Falls in love with him, and with his daughter.
He breaks her heart, and when she takes a job back in Manhattan, Cam breaks Michelle’s.
/
It’s not that she thought Liv would forget her. But four years of med school and four years of pathology residency is a long time, so the first time Cam sees Liv after returning to New York is across an autopsy table. Their victim is a sixteen-year-old girl, beaten bloody, and Cam watches Liv’s mouth draw into a narrow line when she tells her there’s evidence of seminal fluid.
Beside her, Liv’s partner has gone similarly stiff, his brow knotted as he tenses his shoulders.
Liv introduced him as Elliot, when she and Cam had gotten past the shock and excitement of seeing each other for the first time in almost a decade, hugging one another tightly in the sterile autopsy room, both so accustomed to death that the smell of antiseptic and the chill in the air didn’t register anymore. The partner — Elliot — stood a foot away, head cocked in interest as he watched them embrace.
“Cam, this is my partner, Elliot Stabler,” Liv had said, a grin on her face. “El, this is Cam Saroyan, we were on patrol together back at the five-five, before she went to medical school.”
“Half a lifetime ago,” Cam replied, a wistful little smile tugging on her features, as Elliot held his hand out for her to shake, lips upturned in a smile of his own.
They’re sombre now, the three of them, as they take a moment to process the horrors that befell the girl lying prone on the steel table. Cam hates that she’s glad Liv and Elliot are the ones who have to track down the bastard who did this to her, while she gets to stay in the morgue, dealing only with the body. It makes her feel like a coward, and Cam pushes the thought down deep.
“Do you want to grab a drink tonight? Catch up?” she asks Liv instead, distracts herself with happier things.
Her friend hesitates for a split second, eyes darting over to her partner, and oh, interesting, Cam can’t help but think.
“I’ll finish the fives,” Elliot says, “don’t worry about it. I owe you about a million of them anyway, Benson.”
Liv thanks him, turns to Cam. “I’ll see you at eight.”
They bypass O’Malley’s — the dingy cop bar close to the courthouse, all scuffed wood and slightly sticky floors and an old jukebox playing eighties hits in the corner — in favour of a new wine bar a few blocks over. Something a little more classy than the place where the bartender’s wine selection doesn’t go past “white” or “red.” Settling into a little booth in the corner, Liv orders a glass of cab and Cam asks for sauvignon blanc while she wonders idly when they became these grown-up people.
“So, Elliot…” she starts, lips turning up in a sly little smile.
“… is married,” Liv replies, rolling her eyes. “And my partner.”
Cam hides her chuckle behind the rim of her glass. “Okay, okay, standing down.”
Liv laughs and takes a sip of her wine. “Forget about Elliot; tell me everything.”
They catch each other up on the past near-decade, on Cam’s time in D.C. and Liv’s start at SVU and everything in between. It’s so nice, she thinks, to sit down with an old friend who gets it. Who she doesn’t have to explain or justify herself to.
Liv is understanding when she tells her about Andrew, about knowing he’d loved her — but that it wasn’t enough. About how she would’ve stayed in D.C. if he’d been a different person.
“Well, I’m glad you made it back to New York,” Liv says, placing a gentle hand on her forearm.
Cam gives her a watery smile. “Me, too.”
/
She runs into Booth at the FBI when she’s down in the District for a conference, a split second interaction in an elevator. She recommends a Dr. Temperance Brennan, forensic anthropologist, who works out of the Jeffersonian Institute. Whip-smart, the preeminent expert in her field, world-renowned. Brilliant, if a little, well— He’ll find out soon enough.
Cam watches the elevator doors slip shut, oblivious to the chain reaction she just set in motion.
/
Later, much later, when Booth asks her why she took the job at the Jeffersonian, she’s not lying when she says it was for the equipment. For the state-of-the-art facility, the near-unlimited budget, the opportunity to work with some of the brightest (if also most difficult) minds in the country.
She’s tired of being stuck in basements without light and proper ventilation. Tired of working in the dark, dank corners, forgotten and overlooked.
Back in New York, that’s not what she tells her colleagues at OCME, the friends who pile into her favourite Italian restaurant for her official send off. She talks about the excitement of a new challenge, the opportunity to make a difference, working with the Feds. It’s a little clichéd but it’s true, too, and in moments like these, Cam doesn’t try as hard to hide behind the jaded, hardened mask she presents to the world.
Liv’s there, too, partnerless today, toasting Cam with a flute of champagne.
It’s only toward the end of the evening, when half the room is this side of tipsy, that they get a moment alone to speak.
“Excited?” Liv asks, “Nervous?”
Cam laughs. “Bit of both.”
“Fresh starts are good, Cam.”
“Yeah.”
“And besides,” Liv asks, voice dipping into a conspiratorial whisper, “don’t you get to see the guy again? The one you ran into when you were in D.C. for that conference—”
“Booth?”
Her on-again, off-again sometimes-boyfriend. The buttoned-up Army Ranger sniper turned FBI suit. And now the bureau’s official liaison with the Jeffersonian’s Medico-Legal Lab.
“He’ll be a colleague.”
“Uh-huh.” Liv doesn’t look convinced, brow raised knowingly. “Sure he will.”
“It wasn’t like that, with the two of us. We’re just good friends—”
“Who have mind-blowing sex.” At Cam’s scowl, Liv raises her hands, laughing. “Hey, your words!”
The sex had been a little bit mind-blowing; she remembers complaining to Liv that she’d missed out when she was last down in D.C., no time to reconnect with Seeley when they’d both been so busy. But her recommendation had clearly paid off — she’ll be working with Dr. Brennan herself now, and as her boss, no less.
“Fine,” she acquiesces. “But it wasn’t ever serious. Just easy, and fun.”
Liv smirks. “Well, maybe you can have some more fun when you get down there.”
Cam snorts.
/
The learning curve is steep.
It’s not so much the administrative work, or the budgeting, as it is figuring out how to herd cats. Highly intelligent, fiercely independent cats who are skeptical of any kind of authority and won’t let you forget it. On many of those early nights, Cam ends up on her couch with a stiff drink, wondering if she’s in over her head entirely.
Booth isn’t much help, especially when she comes up against Brennan and he immediately, staunchly, takes her side — and tells her in no uncertain terms that the rest of the team will, too. It surprises her, the blind loyalty to this woman, who’s brilliant, sure, but also difficult beyond belief.
She gives Brennan a second chance. Over shared plates of fries and metaphorical “get-out-of-jail-free” cards, they find a rhythm. It’s halting, at first, two strong-willed minds unwilling to bend to one another, but eventually, Cam realizes that this team, this lab, has become a sort of family to her. A place she cherishes, people she cares for.
People who, in turn, care for her.
/
They find the body in a ditch somewhere next to the interstate in Maryland, almost halfway to Pennsylvania. The smell of rotting flesh and animal excrement hangs thick in the air as they approach, and Cam watches Booth out of the corner of her eye, hiding a smile as he tries gamely not to gag.
She rolls her eyes good-naturedly and crouches down next to Brennan, who’s already studying the remains carefully, laser-focused on the exposed tibia the scavengers ate clean. “Female, mid-twenties,” Brennan says, zeroing in on the pelvis, and Cam nods, glancing at the victim’s long hair and the single red high heel that hangs precariously off her foot.
Not at all what you’d wear to hitchhike.
“Tissue decomposition suggests she’s been here at least three days,” Cam adds, and Booth notes the time frame on an index card before venturing toward one of the FBI techs who’s saying something about tire tracks.
She doesn’t catch much of it, far more interested in the small black clutch bag she pulls out from under the victim’s hip. It’s battered but the fake leather didn’t degrade, and she opens it carefully, fishes out a tube of lipstick, a half-eaten pack of gum and a folded business card. Intrigued, Cam opens it up, and promptly does a double-take when she reads the name printed inside.
Det. Olivia Benson
Manhattan Special Victims Unit
Well, shit.
They bag the body and the techs collect soil samples while Cam flags down Booth, handing him the card. “You think the girl’s a cop?” he asks, brow furrowed.
“No, it’s not Liv. But if she had her card—” She pauses, shakes her head. “God only knows what this girl was going through, Seeley, back in New York.”
He doesn’t even comment on her use of his first name, so she knows he recognizes the seriousness of the situation, the gravity of the work the unit does. Booth just nods, asks Cam if she knows Liv back from her time at the NYPD, if she thinks she could help with the case.
“It’s worth a shot,” Cam tells him, and they haven’t made it halfway back to the lab before she pulls out her phone and dials Liv’s line.
The case is firmly with the Feds, no arguing that point, but Liv wants in on it anyway. Tells Cam that it doesn’t matter that they don’t have an ID yet, the vic had her card, which means she’s her responsibility. The fierceness of the declaration makes Cam smile. Liv tells her she’ll be flying down that night, her partner in tow, that their captain is willing to loan them out for a few days. (She might mention, too, that she doesn’t want to pass up the opportunity to have dinner with Cam. Catch up, find out everything she’s missed.)
Booth, predictably, bristles at the idea. Locals, he grumbles, involved in his case. From out of state, no less. Brennan, for her part, wonders why they can’t just call them when they make an ID, ask for case files if they have them. “That’s not how Liv works,” Cam says, not even bothering to mask the smirk blooming on her face. “If the girl had her card, she’ll be here. And trust me, she’ll help.”
They get to the lab early the next morning; Liv and her partner. Cam meets them at the door, hugs Liv and greets Stabler with a smile. She can see both their eyes going wide as they take in the lab — the chrome and steel, the raised platform with the bones on display. The polar opposite of what they’re used to in New York, where the coroners and techs are hidden away in the dark.
She leads them to Angela’s office, makes introductions — Hodgins, Brennan, Booth — and they bring the two detectives up to speed. Angela got tissue markers from Brennan, and she runs the facial recognition; Liv and Stabler watch in awe as a face materializes in front of them, piece by piece.
“Either of you recognize her?” Angela is the first to speak, keeping the rendering up on one side of her screen while she runs it through databases on the other.
Liv takes a half-step closer, brow furrowed. “El, d’you remember that case, back in June?”
Her partner pipes up from next to her. “SoHo, the high-class pimp with the weird collection of antique daggers?”
“Yeah. We talked to a girl, what was her name—”
“Tracy?”
“At least that’s what she called herself.”
The computer pings, and sure enough, a New York drivers license appears, with a face matching their victim. “Tracy Egers,” Booth reads out loud. “Twenty-four, from Queens.”
Stabler tenses, eyes narrowed. “What the hell was she doing all the way down here?”
Tracy Egers, it turns out, was being loaned out to a pimp in Baltimore, saw a chance, and tried to flee. The pimp (who Cam really, really would like to knee straight in the balls) found her out and had her followed. One thing led to another, led to a desperate struggle on the side of the highway, a blow to the head, and Tracy falling into the ditch.
Left for dead, until a trucker found her.
Booth gets the collar on the muscle down in Maryland; Liv and Stabler are going home with an arrest warrant for the pimp — for conspiracy, and a kitchen sink of other charges they can prove now that the sick bastard crossed state lines with girls he employs. The victory is bittersweet, like so much of their work is, but they pile into the Founding Fathers anyway; if nothing else, they’re all in desperate need of a drink.
Hodgins and Angela commandeer a table with Sweets and Brennan, while Booth and Stabler are deep in discussion over something at the adjacent one. Cam smiles from her seat at the bar; she figured that those two would get along. She doesn’t know Stabler all that well, but he reminds her of Booth in all the ways that count.
Liv settles on the barstool next to her and orders another glass of wine. “Thank you,” she says, and Cam furrows her brow. “For letting us come down here to help.”
“Of course. I knew you’d want to.”
Liv nods, takes a sip of wine like it’ll help her forget. “They’re good people,” she says, looking over at the team, laughing and talking with one another. “A little particular,” and at this Cam snorts; that’s the understatement of the century, “but good people.”
“Yeah, they really are.”
“What do you think those two are talking about?” Liv asks, gesturing over at Booth and Stabler, a smile forming on her features.
Cam laughs. “Do we really want to know?”
“Point taken.” Liv pauses. “Booth and his partner, Dr. Brennan, are they…?”
“Together?”
Liv nods. “They seem very close.” (Cam wisely doesn’t mention that she and Stabler seem very close, too. But Stabler’s got a wedding ring, and Booth does not.)
“Booth and Brennan, they’re… let’s just say it’s complicated.”
Liv hums. “And it’s not weird, that he—”
Cam shakes her head. “Me and Seeley, we were always better friends than anything else. I think if there’s a person out there for him, it was never going to be me. And he was never going to be the guy for me, either.”
“But you think it’s her?” Brennan, who’s blunt and brash and literal to a fault, but has one of the biggest hearts Cam has ever known. “His person, I mean.”
“Yeah. I don’t think either of them know it yet, consciously. But yeah, yeah I do.”
/
Most of Cam’s family lives in New York, so she’s still plugged in, and the news is impossible to miss. A statewide manhunt for a psychopath who abducted an NYPD detective. Who abducted Liv.
Cam doesn’t consider herself a particularly religious person. She’s not a vehement atheist like Brennan, nor is she devout like Booth. Whether God exists doesn’t really concern her most days. But for four days straight, Cam sends up a little prayer every night — that they’ll find Liv, and bring her home safe.
/
The next time Liv makes it down to D.C., Cam is getting married. Growing up, she never saw herself as a bride, never envisioned the big poofy dress and the tea lights on tables, the cheesy first dance to a slow song. It was a fantasy, firmly confined to the daydreams she didn’t want to admit to be having.
Then she met Arastoo, and everything changed.
Now, she’s standing in a reception tent with the man she loves and the people she’s learned to call family, and it’s more than she could ever have dreamed. Hodgins is manning the bar (and they’re all going to regret that in the morning) as Angela flits to and fro between the interns and various colleagues they’ve crossed paths with over the years. Brennan is speaking softly with Booth, their baby boy balanced on her hip, as Christine and Michael Vincent run underfoot.
Liv’s been roped into a conversation with Caroline, and Cam grins as she watches her old friend stand toe-to-toe with the prosecutor and not so much as blink. It’s a testament to Liv that Caroline can’t rattle her (and oh, Cam knows it’s not for a lack of trying; Caroline finds needling people way too fun). She lets it go on for a few minutes before deciding to put Liv out of her misery, and walks over to join the two of them. “Caroline, I see you’ve met Lieutenant Benson,” she cuts in, mirth in her tone.
“And what a delightful woman she is, cherie.” Liv blushes gently at that, and Caroline smirks. “Too bad she’s wastin’ away up north, solvin’ local crimes for the NYPD.”
“You’re not trying to poach her, are you?” Cam narrows her eyes at Caroline, while Liv laughs. (It’s never going to happen, Cam knows this. Not in a million years.)
“I’m just sayin’,” Caroline quips, “we could use some more women down here to balance out all the suits.”
“I’m flattered, truly.”
Caroline winks. “Of course you are. Now, excuse me, ladies, but I need a drink.”
“Well, she sure is something,” Liv says when Caroline’s out of earshot, and Cam chuckles.
“She really is.”
“And those two,” she adds, gesturing over toward Brennan and Booth, now swaying together to a slow song, wrapped up in one another like they so often are, oblivious to the outside world. “They figured it out, didn’t they.”
“They did.” (If Cam hears a little bit of wistfulness in Liv’s tone as she watches them dance, she doesn’t comment on it. She knows Elliot, the partner, the married one, isn’t on the force anymore. Knows it’s something she won’t ask about. Knows, instinctually, that it still stings.) “Took them a long time, but they did.”
“So did you,” Liv says, looking in Arastoo’s direction. He catches both their gazes and smiles, and Cam feels a wave of gratefulness wash over her. For this man, and her life, for the future they’re building, together.
“He was worth waiting for,” Cam tells her, sentimental in a way she doesn’t often let herself be. But it’s her wedding day; she thinks she’s earned it.
“All the best things are.”
She nods, thinks of Liv’s son, Noah, thinks of Michelle. Of loves lost and experiences gained, of terrible, horrible things that made them both stronger, and the small things they now know not to take for granted.
“To love,” Cam says.
“To love,” Liv echoes.
Under the glow of the string lights, she lifts her glass and takes a drink.
/
Melinda Warner, an old friend from the coroner’s office, emails her the news: Liv made captain of SVU. Cam sends a bouquet of peonies and a note to her precinct.
Congratulations, Liv. There’s no better person for the job.
She still means every word.
/
There’s a pathology conference in New York, and she’s sure she’ll have to miss it. Between work at the lab and the boys — all settled in, now, but still rambunctious teenagers with attitudes to match — she’s running herself ragged, even with Arastoo at her side. But her husband (her husband) is a miracle worker, and manages to clear his own schedule so he can stay home while she flies up.
The first thing she does after settling all the conference details is text Liv and confirm a night for drinks. Their “grown up” wine bar doesn’t exist anymore, but Liv says she’s got a new favourite spot close to her precinct, so Cam meets her there after a day of presentations, grateful to spend a few hours with someone who won’t talk about death.
Even though they so rarely see each other these days, catching up is still effortless.
They fill one another in on the details — Noah’s latest dance recital, the half-brother he found, Michelle’s engagement, Arastoo’s new job — and then it’s like no time has passed at all as they swap stories and jokes and grin over the rims of their glasses. It’s nice, having a friend who gets it, but isn’t privy to the day-to-day. It’s nice to talk to someone who has an outside perspective, and her own, equally as complex, interesting life.
Liv’s cell chirps from its resting place on the table, and Cam shoots her a glance. Probably a case; the timing is unfortunate, but she understands. But Liv smiles at the notification, small and private, and oh, oh, there’s something her friend hasn’t shared with her yet.
“Would you mind a little bit more company?” Liv asks, and Cam shakes her head, intrigued.
After Liv sends a text back, she sets her phone down. “He’s a block away; he was planning on picking me up but said he could drop by for a drink if you were okay with it.”
“He?”
“You remember Elliot, right?”
The old partner, the one she thought dropped off the face of the earth. Yeah, she remembers.
“He’s back in New York?”
Liv nods. “Has been for a few years now, and, uh—”
She doesn’t get to finish her sentence; the door to the bar opens, and in walks Stabler, a decade and a half older, but sharp and solid, dressed in a three-piece suit. Cam looks over with interest (entirely objectively speaking, the man looks damn good) as he crosses the space to their table in a few short strides, face lighting up in a broad smile when he spots Liv.
“Hey,” he says to both of them, and then bends down to kiss Liv hello, and oh, what the fuck? “Good to see you again, Cam. It’s been too long.”
“It sure has. And clearly,” she says, looking between the two of them with wide eyes, “a lot has happened since.”
Liv winces a little at that, and Stabler scratches at the back of his neck as he settles down in the chair next to her. “A lot sounds about right,” he says, sheepish.
Cam laughs, and signals for a waiter.
“Another round please, and a glass for him? I have a feeling we’re gonna be here for a while.”