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In which Cameron and Donna celebrate the season
[CN: food/eating/breakfast mention] . . On a Sunday late in March, Donna woke up to the familiar sound of birdsong and Cameron moving about the trailer’s kitchen. She sat up in the Airstream’s narrow little bed, which she had somehow come to love, stretched her arms out in front of her, and then got up, pulled on her silk robe, and went to join Cameron. She kissed Cameron’s shoulder, asked if she could help, and then when Cameron refused, took a seat at the kitchen table, which had just been cleared of all of Cameron’s notebooks and legal pads and books and tech journals and cleaned with a lemon-y disinfectant.
“How’s your morning?” Donna asked.
Cameron, who was somehow transformed into a morning person in rural locations, and who had been up for hours, smiled, “It’s been great.” She arranged her three pans on the stove, and said, “My gardening chores are done, my progress is journaled, my laundry is folded and put away, and my desk looks like it belongs to a calm and emotionally healthy individual.”
Fifteen minutes later, Cameron came to the table with a large tray laden with plates, and set it down shakily, but with no incident.
“This looks amazing,” Donna beamed, as she helped Cameron unload the tray. The took silverware, their plates of eggs, home fries, and vegetarian bacon, and glasses of water and set them on the table. And then, before she sat down, Cameron grabbed the last thing on the tray, an old, repurposed pickle jar. There was a hunk of soil in it, that had a small purple crocus growing out of it. Cameron put crocus in the center of the table.
Donna started to dig into her food, and then asked, “Is that…?”
“The first one of the year!” Cameron said, excitedly. “I found it near my garden patch!” Then, she picked up her glass, held it up, and said, “Happy spring, Boss.”
Donna did the same with her glass and clinked it against Cameron’s. Warmly, she said, “Yes, it is a very happy spring.”
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(belated!) FEMSLASH FEBRUARY 2024 #19: In which Cameron and Donna talk about moving
[CN: food and alcohol mentions] . .
It was just after 11pm and, for once, it was quiet at the Mutiny house. Lev was in his room with a guy he’d met at the Mutiny picnic, and Cameron was in the living room, on one of their work terminals.
She was checking to see if Tom was online for the third time that night when she heard a car slow down, and drive around to the back of the house. Cameron got up quietly, picked up the Mutiny house baseball bat, and stepped into the kitchen. She looked out the back door window, and saw what looked like Donna, getting out what looked like Donna’s car. With a sigh of relief, Cameron rested the bat against the wall, and opened the door and stepped out onto the back porch as Donna came up the steps.
Before Cameron could say anything, Donna said, “So I talked to Gordon.” She shoved her hands into her pockets, and said, “We haven’t figured it out entirely, but, he’s in. As of tonight, we’re going to California.”
Eyes wide, Cameron laughed, in happy disbelief . Then, she said, “Wait, why are you here? You could’ve told me that over the phone.”
Donna leaned against porch railing and shrugged, “I was already out.”
“Already out? Out where?” Cameron asked, bewildered.
“The bar,” Donna said. “You know, the one where your fence friend nearly rocked your shit? But don’t worry,” she chuckled, “he wasn’t there tonight.”
Cameron stepped forward, and squinted, trying to see Donna’s face. “Are you drunk?”
“No I’m not drunk,” Donna huffed. She stood up and dusted off her jeans, and then dusted off her hands. “I had a drink, one, singular. I just, needed to get out of the house.”
Cameron frowned, and her shoulders sagged. “You’re always welcome to come here.”
Donna grinned at her. “I’ll keep that in mind, for the next time I can’t stand to look at Gordon’s face anymore.”
Cameron looked at Donna. She felt oddly panicked, though she couldn’t say why.
“You don’t get it,” Donna said, pointing an index finger at Cameron. “You don’t have any idea how good it felt to just walk out. Do you have any idea how many times he just left me alone? With the girls? To work, to go drink?” Donna raked her hands through hair, as if she were about to massage her scalp, and then let her hands fall loosely to her sides, before putting them in the pockets of her jeans again “Not to mention all the times he was there, technically, but was too blitzed and too absorbed in his pity party to carry on an adult conversation….” She let out a heavy sigh, and then turned back to the deck railing, and leaned against it again, resting her elbows on it.
Cameron slowly went to the railing, and stood next to Donna. They both looked out at the darkened yard, and Cameron wondered if they looked like those Peanuts special scenes where Charlie Brown and Linus would talk by that brick wall.
After some silence, Cameron said, “So, we’re going. Gordon and the girls are coming out to California.”
Donna looked at Cameron, and said, “Even if Gordon said no, I was in. I decided that before I talked to him. I decided that I was ready to leave him.”
Cameron’s stomach sloshed with an odd mix of affection and anxiety. “Really?” She rested her arms on the railing. “But what about the girls? What if he didn’t let you take them?”
“Well,” Donna said, sadly. “I wouldn’t have liked leaving them, but I did consider that it might be better to leave them here with him.” Then quickly, she added, “But it looks like I won’t have to. Gordon is just as desperate to get out of here as I am. He never wanted to leave the Bay, and he was right. Don’t tell him I said that, though.”
Cameron chuckled. “Oh, trust me, I won’t.” Then, she said, “I wouldn’t have asked you to do that, to leave them. If you weren’t going to California, I wasn’t either.”
Donna turned to look at her. With a smile, she said, “Yeah?”
Cameron smiled back. “Well, yeah. We’re partners.”
Donna looked back out at the yard, and rested her chin in her hand. Ruefully, she said, “I thought about asking him for a divorce. But it’s not really what I want, I’m not ready to give up, yet. What I want…is for him to invest in us. And the mainframe. But really, us. All of us, I guess.”
Cameron looked at her. “And now, he is. So, good job!”
Donna laughed quietly. “Yeah, I did do a good job! You’re right.”
Cameron listened to Donna’s laugh, and gazed at her now happy-looking face. She felt a tightness in her chest, and the tightness suddenly had words: I wish I could make you happy. It was a feeling Cameron hadn’t felt since she was a little girl.
Abruptly, Cameron straightened up and back away from the railing, moving back toward the house. “Hey. Do you wanna come in? Maybe crash here?” Donna turned to look at her, face quizzical. “It’s late, Donna,” Cameron said. “Just, come on. You can have the couch. Or, my bed, because I’ll up be up for a while, and I can take the couch.” Then, she added, “…we have pizza. Plenty of it.”
Donna stood up and turned toward the house. “You know what? You’re right. And that sounds great.” Cameron went toward the door, and went inside, and Donna followed her.
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HALT AND CATCH FIRE
 3.09 || 4.08 
[requested]
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Headcanon that Pi Day is celebrated annually and enthusiastically in the Emerson-Howe household
[CN: food mention]
Because it’s Cameron’s favorite thing to eat, in a way, it’s sort of more like ‘chicken pot pi day,’ it’s what Cameron and Donna make for dinner every year on March 14th
They also do an annual recitation contest, and every year, either Haley or Cameron wins. Every year, Cameron jokes, “It’s okay, I’m sure you have useful skills too, Boss,” and every year Donna agrees, “Yes, that’s true! I do have useful skills! Like making money! And buying houses, and cars, and semesters at college!” 
One year in the late 90s, they add a home screening of Pi (1998, dir. Darren Aronofsky) to their itinerary, but when Cameron is unable to sleep for the rest of that week, it promptly becomes a one time thing
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(belated!) FEMSLASH FEBRUARY 2024 #18: In which Donna (and by extension, Cameron) assist in a critical rescue effort
[CN: food/eating mentions; alcohol mentions; fictional plane crash]
[ALSO: spoilers for season 1 of Yellowjackets]
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In 1996, Donna and Cameron are elated to celebrate Haley’s graduation, and see her off to college. Donna throws a huge party, delights in taking her graduate shopping for everything she’ll need for her dorm room, and makes an event of taking Haley to school and helping her move in.
But then, after Haley is situated, Donna realizes that she is an empty nester. She copes with it by obsessing over a horrifying and puzzling news story: in May, Flight 2525, carrying a high school girls’ soccer team to a tournament went missing. Watching the news from their living room couch, Donna says, “They’re Haley’s age...most of them should be at college right now, what a nightmare.” After a couple weeks of reading everything she can find about the flight, she manages to get in touch with the Matthews, whose daughter Lottie was a member of the soccer team, and who chartered the flight. When Lottie’s father says that the NTSB hasn’t found anything in months, and that the private former NTSB investigator that they hired hasn’t been able to find anything either, Donna offers to see if any of her contacts are willing to review their findings. The Matthews and the other parents are desperate, and so they accept.
-- When photocopies of the private investigator’s research arrives, Cameron looks at it. “I think getting involved in this is a terrible idea, but I’ve gotten weird about crazier things,” she says. After she goes through everything, she looks at the map again, and says, “I don’t think they’ve been looking in the right place. Like, the projection for the debris field, I think it’s wrong. Did they look in Canada?”
-- Donna calls Risa’s femme aerospace engineering professor ex, who agrees with Cameron, and puts the debris field way north of where the NTSB put it, in Alberta. Donna then finds a search and rescue firm run by a woman who used to be in tech that has connections to the local parks department and wilderness experience, Lottie’s father hires them, and they deploy an all-woman search team. When Risa, not entirely kidding, predicts, “We have lesbians with carabiners on the case now, so we’re gonna see results,” Donna hopes that she’s right
-- It takes the search team a week to find the plane, and it’s unexpected ‘gone to lake’ message, and another day to call in more reinforcements and find the lake. They find a girl sleeping on the ground outside a cabin, and they wake her, and she tells them that the rest of the survivors are in the cabin. Finding the survivors to be in shockingly good health, the search team starts the process of transporting them all back to Calgary
-- The Matthews fly the survivor’s parents to meet them in Calgary, and Donna helps some of the parents to secure hotel accommodations for the trip. She winds up getting hotel room and flight for herself, and Cameron, who isn’t about to let Donna go off to meet a bunch of strangers by herself, agrees to go with her
-- When they gets to the search and rescue firm’s offices, she finds the survivors crowded into the lobby, looking dazed, while a team of private nurses buzzes around them, taking down their information and re-checking their vitals. Cameron and Donna wind up handing out water and protein bars to them while the owner of the firm orders food for them
-- After a literal feeding frenzy that actually kind of scares every non-survivor in the room, Donna talks to the survivors, asking if there’s anything else she can get for them while they wait for their parents. One of the soccer players, a 17 year old girl whose hair reminds Donna of the first time she met Cameron, semi-jokingly asks for a stiff drink, and says, ‘thanks anyway,’ when Donna asks one of the nurses if she has any Xanax.
-- Another girl, who’s wrapped in a blanket, and sitting off to the side, somewhat removed from the rest of the group, quietly asks for hot cocoa. Donna finds packets of instant cocoa in a kitchen, near the carafes of coffee and hot water, so she mixes some. The girl starts crying when Donna brings it back to her, so Donna stays with her for a while
-- A third girl demands to know how they were found, as if she’s angry they were rescued. When the owner of the firm explains that Donna helped find new personnel track down a new lead, the girl glares at Donna from behind her wire rim glasses and poof of curly blonde hair
-- Donna asks the girl who asked for a drink about her, and she says that they probably only survived as long as they did because the girl in the glasses, Misty, took some red cross class, and knew how to sterilize wounds and tie tourniquets. Donna makes a point of talking to Misty and praising her for taking care of her teammates and sharing her skills. Misty seems less angry after that
-- Later, in the privacy of their hotel room, Cameron says that Misty is weird (“which is significant, coming from me, Donna”)
-- When the parents of the survivors arrive, the scene is predictably overwhelming, even before they all start to thank Donna profusely for her efforts. No one claims the girl who asked for the drink, though, because her mother is too sick to travel
-- Before they all retire to their hotel rooms, Donna passes business cards out, and and offers to help anyone who needs to figure out college admissions or job placements before they all return home. The girl who asked for the drink, Natalie, is the only one who takes her up on it. A few weeks into the new year, she calls Donna at work, and tells her that she never really had a plan for after high school, and that she needs to get out of New Jersey
-- Donna invites her out to California, and Natalie ends up moving to San José. Donna helps her find a job, and Cameron gives her a book on code, which Natalie wants to like, but finds boring. After she establishes residency, Natalie starts community college, and two years after that, she gets into UC Santa Cruz, where she goes on to study philosophy.
-- Well over a year after the rescue, Donna gets another call at work, which she picks up herself because her assistant has gone home for the day. When she says, “Symphonic Ventures, this is Donna,” the person on the other end says, “Hi, this is Jackie Taylor, from…the plane crash? You got hot cocoa for me.” It takes a second, but Donna realizes who she is and sits up, and says, “Hi! How are you doing? What can I do for you?”
-- Jackie says that she doesn’t know what to do, and when Donna asks, “About what, sweetie?” Jackie says, “Anything?” She relates a long and complicated story about how she and her best friend got into a terrible fight shortly before the rescue, after which they never spoke again, and how she didn’t have any friends and had dropped out after half a semester at Rutgers because she couldn’t drag herself out of bed anymore, and how she’d probably already peaked in high school
-- Finally, she says, “Did you ever have a friend who you thought would be in your life forever? And like, you were totally fine with that? Like, you would have been happy to hang out with them for the rest of your life?”
-- Donna is slightly bewildered by this outpouring of emotion, but she says, “I felt that way about my partner when we started working together.” “And now?” Jackie asks. Donna grins, “She moved in a few months ago, so I guess we’ll be hanging out for a while.”
-- Jackie asks Donna what their house is like, and about Donna’s job. Donna tells her about Mountain View, and her pool, and getting married young and then getting divorced and into venture capital, and Gordon and their kids and Mutiny and Cameron, and then takes the opportunity to ask Jackie, “What about you though? What did you want to study, at Rutgers?”
-- When Jackie says that she doesn’t know, and that she’s never really been good at anything but looking like an overachiever, Donna ends up inviting her to visit
-- Jackie tears through a stack of unopened birthday cards from relatives and family friends who haven’t know what to say to her since the plane crash and finds enough money to pay for an open ended round trip bus ticket to San José, which she books immediately
-- A few weeks later Jackie arrives in Mountain View. Cameron and Donna find her to be a mostly pleasant houseguest, but scold her for apologizing whenever she asks them for anything. Jackie blushes self-consciously when Cameron tells her, “You’re allowed to take up space.”
-- While in the Bay Area, Jackie takes herself sightseeing and goes to the beach. She visits with Natalie, who actually seems happy to see her, and finds that Natalie is sharing her tiny, one-bedroom apartment with a girl she met through her bookstore job (Jackie is very curious about this, but manages to keep her prying questions to herself)
-- Haley takes Jackie out on her next to last night in Mountain View. She gets dressed up and dances and drinks alcohol for the first time since the plane crash, and she gets so drunk that she kisses Haley while they’re waiting outside the bar’s restroom (Haley doesn’t exactly mind, but also isn’t about to take advantage of a vulnerable young woman
--She does wind up sleeping in the guest room with Jackie, though, partly because she’s afraid that Jackie will be sick, but also because she is very easy on the eyes, and better company than she realizes
-- (Donna asks Haley the next morning how their outing was, and if she ‘showed Jackie a good time,’ and Haley says, “Yeah, and she showed me one too” before sashaying out of the kitchen. Cameron and Donna are delighted by this mildly scandalous turn of events)
-- When Donna drives Jackie to the bus station two days later, she asks Jackie what she’s going to do when she gets home. “I don’t really know,” Jackie says with a tentative smile. “I’ll figure it out, I guess? I have a week on a bus to think about it….” Then, she says, “Thanks for having me, Donna. This was really amazing.”
-- When Jackie gets home, she starts looking for a job and learning how to drive, and starts using the internet more regularly. For a while, she takes every ‘am I gay?’ quiz she can find (they all say 'probably', ‘maybe’, or ‘yes, definitely’)
-- A year later, Donna gets a postcard with a picture of a sculpture called “Gay Liberation” on it. She turns it over, and it says, “Donna, I figured it out! Thanks again, your friend Jackie Taylor (p.s tell Cameron I say hi)”
-- Donna pins the postcard to the cork board in her office, so she can look at it whenever she feels like she doesn’t know what to do, or like she’s not doing enough.
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(belated!) FEMSLASH FEBRUARY 2024 #17: In which Cameron makes a confession to Donna
[CN: meal/eating/food mentions] . . When Cameron and Donna decided that they should get married, Donna had asked if she could be the one to propose to Cameron, because she hadn’t been properly proposed to yet, and had done a fair bit of proposing to Donna over the course of their working relationship. It was so heartfelt and thoughtful and genuinely romantic that Cameron had agreed. But she quickly found that anticipating the proposal was just as nerve-wracking as dreading something that she didn’t want to happen. In the following weeks, Cameron found it difficult to relax, focus, and fall sleep.
After a month, she got used to the idea of Donna randomly proposing to her, and started to sleep easier, but still felt twitchy, shoulders tensing and goosebumps rising whenever it seemed like Donna might be about to ask her something. She didn’t realize just how nervous she was until one night at dinner, when Donna warmly said her name, causing Cameron to panic internally, and then asked her to please pass the scalloped potatoes Cameron had made for them.
The day after the potato incident Cameron and Donna drove to Palo Alto so they could enjoy lunch and some light hiking at the nature preserve there. They’d been planning this excursion for a few weeks, and Donna was excited to start breaking in her brand new hiking boots after spending the last decade filling her walk-in closet with pair after pair of extremely uncomfortable and wildly expensive designer heels.
As soon as they got into the car, it was like Cameron’s anxiety melted away, and was gone completely by the time they started their hike. There was no proposal, no impending wedding, just her and Donna, on a sunny day, out in nature, with nothing to do but put one foot in front of the other, together. By the time they stopped to eat lunch, Cameron couldn’t remember why she’d been so nervous, or what she might have been afraid of.
But just as they were getting ready to return to the trail, their sandwiches and granola bars eaten and their picnic table cleared, Donna noticed that one of her new shoes felt loose. A few paces from the table, Donna bent down, on one knee, to untie her shoe, and see if retying would help. “Hey, Cam, hold on a sec.”
Cameron, who was still talking about and laughing at a story from Bos that they’d been talking about over lunch, stopped and turned back. “Donna?”
“Down here!” Donna said, as she refinished tightening her shoe lace. Smiling, she reached a hand up toward Cameron.
Cameron’s anxiety returned at full-strength. Eyes wide with horror, her hands flew to her face, hands over her mouth.
Before Donna could get out a full, ‘What’s wrong?’ Cameron blurted out, “I stole your car! And I almost vandalized your house!”
So confused that she forgot to get up, Donna, still on one knee said, “…wait, you what?”
Looking very much like a child who had just been caught trying to clean up a mess she’d made, Cameron said “I was about to spray paint something on your living room wall when your disgruntled neighbor who looked like Matthew McConaughey came in with his rifle!”
Donna’s face went from confused to utterly bewildered. “Wait, back in Dallas? You stole my car and went to my house when I wasn’t there?”
On the verge of tears, Cameron pulled the collar of her fisherman’s sweater up over her mouth. “While you were saving my BIOS, and I was supposed to be babysitting the girls. They said that Gordon said I was trash and that you laughed at me.” She sniffled, and then admitted, “I overreacted, a little. I was upset.”
Donna was about to stand up, but instead, she sat down on the grass, and sighed. “Well, you never cease to surprise, I will happily give you that.”
Cameron shifted her weight back and forth, from one foot to the other. “Sorry.”
“I wasn’t complaining,” Donna said. Then, she added, “That guy really did look like a ready-to-wear Matthew McConaughey, didn’t he? Brian. What a jackass. J0e should’ve let me claw his face off at COMDEX.”
“You’re not mad?” Cameron asked.
Donna wrinkled her nose. “That you wanted to vandalize a house that, on some level, I kind of hated, that I moved out of 15 years ago ? I mean…not really?” She sighed, and then said, “You got me out of that house, after my parents kind of trapped us there. You rescued us, in a way.”
In a small voice, Cameron said, “You still wanna marry me?”
Donna smiled brightly. Getting up to her feet and dusting off her twill hiking pants. “It’s gonna take more than that to scare me off Howe.” She put her hands on her hips. “Honestly, I might wanna marry you even more now.”
Feeling an unexpected sense of relief, Cameron grinned at her. “Even though I’m trash?”
Donna tucked a strand of loose hair behind Cameron’s ear. “We’re gonna have to talk more about that, huh?”
“I didn’t realize it was still a thing I thought about,” Cameron said.
“I haven’t thought about the Dallas house in a while, I didn’t realize I remembered how living there felt,” Donna said, with a gentle shrug. “Well, she said, starting toward the trail, “no time like the present, right? We’ve got a good three miles to go, just for today.”
Cameron rushed to catch up with her. After a few more paces, Donna said, “At some point, we’re gonna have an engagement party, and I am definitely going to make a speech where I tell all our friends about my beloved was a wild delinquent when we met, and how her delinquency was exact what I needed.”
Cameron grinned as they walked. “That feels like the perfect consequence for my behavior.”
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FEMSLASH FEBRUARY 2024 #16: In which Cameron and Donna are relaxing after an ideal weekend
[CN: food/meal prep mention] . . It was around 9:15 on Sunday night and Cameron and Donna were in the media room, the tv showing a rerun of the Battlestar Galactica reboot, relaxing after a busy couple of days. Haley, Joanie, Tanya, Risa, and Dr. Katie Herman had come over with their partners and kids on Saturday for the first pool party of the season, and Cameron and Donna had spent Sunday doing their usual chores (meal prepping for the week, refilling the bird feeders, laundry, etcetera) and post-party clean up.
Cameron, who had developed an interest in the fiber arts after reading about how Ada Lovelace had studied embroidery and based her approach to programming on her knowledge of an automated weaving loom, was happily mending a hole in one of her favorite sweaters with yarn and instructions from Katie Herman, while Marshmallow the flame point siamese loafed on the arm of the couch next to her. Donna, who was usually still alert at 9pm, was lying on her side, her head resting on a throw pillow on the couch’s center cushion, and had recently announced that she was just resting her eyes.
“You know,” Cameron said, as she threaded her yarn needle through a loop on the right-hand side of the hole in her sweater, “you can go to bed, if you’re tired.”
Donna yawned. “But we’re hanging out.”
Cameron held back an affectionate laugh. “Yes, and it’s very nice, I’m glad you’re here.”
“Hmm,” Donna agreed.
Licorice the cat, who had just finished her nightly patrol of the perimeter, trotted into the media room, and chirped. She sprang up onto the couch and made herself comfortable in the space near Donna’s legs. Donna opened her eyes long enough to give her a scritch behind the ears, and then went back to ‘resting’ them.
Cameron watched, and then glanced at the television before looking back at her mending. “You must really be tired if your eyes are closed while Starbuck is on screen.”
“Fortunately, I can see her very clearly in my mind’s eye,” Donna said.
Cameron threaded another loop, and then another, and tugged at the yarn to pull the loops together, and then spent the next few minutes finishing her mending while wondering if it was a coincidence that looping in programming language was called that. After she snipped the yarn and sewed the rest into sweater, she said, “There!” proudly.
“Oh?” Donna said. “Let me see.” She sat up, and gently took the sweater from Cameron. She saw that the sweater was grey, but that Cameron had used some left-over bright purple yarn from Katie Herman’s collection to patch the hole. “Characteristically bold,” she decided. “I like it.” She handed it back to Cameron.
“Thank you,” Cameron beamed. She folded the sweater, and put it on the coffee table. She put her yarn needle back in the old mint tin she used for storage, and put it on coffee table with her sewing scissors and the handful of purple yarn that was still left. She turned to Donna, and asked, “You wanna go back to resting your eyes?”
Donna nodded enthusiastically. “Yes please!”
“Alright then.” Cameron grabbed the extra large blanket from the back of the couch, and after Donna rested her head in Cameron’s lap, Cameron threw the blanket over the both of them.
Donna closed her eyes, and said, “Who needs Starbuck when I’m already married to the perfect, muscular, jump-suit wearing blonde?”
Cameron blushed with happiness at the compliment. Licorice meowed, as if to agree, and Cameron and Donna laughed. “Can’t argue with that, Boss,” Cameron said.
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FEMSLASH FEBRUARY 2024 #15: In which Cameron and Donna give a presentation
[CN: food/cooking mention] . . When they were asked to be the keynote speakers at an inaugural conference for marginalized groups in tech at a large and prestigious research university, Cameron agreed on the condition that Donna do most of the talking. “I will gladly stand up there with you and chime in where necessary,” she’d said, while stirring a nearly ready risotto, “but you’re better at this sort of thing, so it should mostly be you.” Donna didn’t want Cameron to be sidelined, but reluctantly agreed to this.
Cameron convinced Donna to be inspired by her own poolside speech from the night Cameron was supposed to leave California indefinitely, to focus on how partnerships evolve over time, and make the work worthwhile even when they eventually dissolve. Eager to contribute equally, she also made the slide show to go with their remarks.
The slide show began with childhood photos of each of them, and their remarks started with short biographies of the both of them. Donna described her upbringing in 1960s Dallas, and her awkward teen years, and her discovery of computer engineering. She told the audience that Cameron wanted her to tell them that she was a former beauty pageant winner (she had used her Little Miss Perfect portrait in the slide show), and that she had called Donna a bitch the first time they’d worked together, all to appreciative laughter from the audience. After that, Donna talked the audience through decades of their careers, while Cameron clicked the slide show through photos from Cardiff, COMDEX, Mutiny, AGGEK, Atari, Symphonic, Comet and Phoenix. After explaining her personal belief that partnership is about finding a new project to work on, in both our professional and personal lives, she and Cameron shared a short, final montage of photos from outside the office - pictures of them, and also Haley and Joanie, and Gordon, and J0e, and Bos, and Diane and Risa and Tanya and Dr. Katie Herman and Lev and Yo-yo and their families, at barbecues and camp grounds and birthday parties and graduations, and one final photo of Cameron and Donna on their wedding day. Cameron found herself tearing up over it, even though she’d spent hours assembling it.
After which Donna made her concluding remarks: “Being a woman in STEMS is hard. I know. It sucks. Being queer in tech, and feeling like you should be hiding something about yourself is hard. I can’t imagine what it’s like to be a scientist of color, and to see so few people who look like you and understand where you come from every day at a job that you love, where you’re trying to build something for people. But you are here. You’re here to work, and you’re also here to live, and I know that you can do this. “You won’t necessarily get to have it all, and you might not even want it all. But if you are very lucky, and you work very hard, you can get what you need.” The end of their presentation was met with a standing ovation and riotous applause, which was followed by a brief q and a.
Most of the ‘q’s were from young women, who asked Donna and Cameron which of their accomplishments they were most proud of, what they would do differently, and what new policies and practices they thought might be most helpful for young software and hardware developers with limited resources. The whole thing was a lot more pleasant than Cameron had expected, until the next to last question.
Alexa Vonn came up to the microphone. “My question is for Cameron.”
“Hello, Alexa,” Cameron deadpanned.
“Do you think that you’re easy to work with?” Alexa asked.
Cameron fought the urge to burst out into hysterical, self-conscious laughter. “No.” The audience laughed again. “That’s why I’ve worked with Donna for most of my life. She’s very aware of my limitations and where I struggle to communicate.”
“Okay,” Alexa said, “then my question for Donna is, do you actually like working with Cameron?”
Donna grinned at her. “Honestly? I’ve loved every minute of it.”
Alexa pressed, “Even with all of the ‘ups and downs’ you glossed over in your presentation? The two of you were famously estranged for many years, weren’t you?”
“‘Famously’ feels like an overstatement,” Cameron said.
“How did you come back from that?” Alexa asked.
With a hint of irritation in her voice, Donna said, “Well, you start talking. Maybe because something terrible happens, like your ex-husband dies suddenly and tragically young. And you realize that some things are more important than petty grudges. So you keep talking. Does that answer your question?”
Before Alexa could answer, Donna said, “Great! It was very nice to see you Alexa, thank you for your questions. I’m sorry that you and Cameron didn’t get to fully realize the project you worked on, it sounded really interesting.”
After the final question (“favorite app?”), Cameron and Donna went into the ladies’ room for a few minutes. Donna went over to the sinks, put her hands on the counter, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath.
Cameron waited for a second, and then said, “So that mostly went really well, right?”
Without opening her eyes, Donna snorted, but didn’t say anything. She took another deep breath.
“The way you shut Alexa down? Hot.” Leaning against the wall, Cameron said, “I kind of like it when you’re a bitch.”
Donna grinned at Cameron, an arched an eyebrow suggestively.
“Still,” Cameron frowned. “We kinda deserved that after some of the shit we’ve pulled at other people’s presentations, huh?”
Donna looked over at Cameron, and then started to laugh, a real, deep belly laugh. The sound of it made Cameron smile, and think, there’s literally nothing better than this.
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FEMSLASH FEBRUARY 2024 #14: In which Donna puts Cameron (back) to bed
Donna was usually a sound sleeper, thankfully capable of 8 or even 9 hours of rest, but that night, she woke up, to light from the hallway spilling into their bedroom. She glanced over at her alarm clock, which said that it was 2am. Without thinking about it, she got up, and pulled on her robe. She went out into the hallway, and then went downstairs, reflexively turning off the hall light as she went.
Donna’s first instinct was to check the kitchen, but before she could, she noticed that the light in the media room seemed to be on. “Cameron?” She stopped by the doorway to the media room. She waited, and then went in.
Cameron was there, sitting on the floor, with the coffee table pushed to the side of the room to make space for her. She was surrounded by sheets of lined yellow paper that had been torn from her legal pad, some crumpled into balls, but many of them still smooth. She was hunched over, sitting on her knees, and looked as if she was trying to fit all of her pieces of paper together to make some sort of puzzle, or a map, maybe.
“Cam?” Donna asked again.
Cameron looked up, startled. Eyes wide and slightly red, she whispered, “Oh, did I wake you? I’m sorry….”
“No, no, I think I woke up on my own,” Donna shook her head. “What are you doing?”
Cameron looked back at the papers surrounding her, and smoothed them out. “Okay,” she looked up at Donna. Calmly, in a way that only made her seem more unhinged, Cameron said, “So, I know that we said that I can’t solve climate change with my mind. But —“ she stopped to tuck her frazzled hair behind her ear — “what if I can solve a little but important piece of it? What if I can solve all the energy servers spend on cooling?”
Crossing her arms over her chest, Donna said, “You watched a cable news channel after I went to bed, didn’t you?”
Cameron’s face fell. “Yes, I did. And then I had coffee.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake, Cameron!” Donna snapped.
“I know,” Cameron said, mournfully. “I’m sorry.”
Donna looked at all the papers surrounding Cameron. She saw a diagram that looked interesting, and made a note to herself to look at it the following day. Then, with a huffy sigh, she said, “Honestly, I wouldn’t bet against you and your big brain, even with a problem like server energy use. But, you’re not gonna solve this now, at 2 in the morning, after being up for almost 20 hours and then getting all hopped up on caffeine. So come on, get up.” She reached a hand out toward Cameron.
Cameron hesitated at first, and then said, “You’re right. You’re always right.” She steadied herself with Donna’s hand as she stood up.
Donna went behind Cameron, and pushed her toward and out the door, and into the hallway. Once they were out there, Donna took Cameron’s elbow and said, “Okay, let’s get you to bed, Grandma.” She steered Cameron back to their room, and their bed, which Cameron flopped into without argument. Miserably, she turned onto her back, and pulled the covers up to her chest.
Donna went into their bathroom and grabbed a clean washcloth. She wet it at the sink with steamy hot water, rang it out carefully, folded it in half, and dutifully brought it back to Cameron. “Here, for your eyes,” she said. “Which are looking a little nuts.”
Cameron accepted the washcloth and placed it over her eyes, and Donna went around to her side of the bed, and the finally got back into it, almost moaning at how good it felt to lie back down.
“This feels nice,” Cameron said, of the washcloth. “I should do this more often, just because.” Then, she said, “I’ll bring the washcloth back to the bathroom, you go back to bed. I’m sorry you had to get up and come and get me.”
Donna, who was just getting comfortable lying on her side, with one of her pillows underneath her arm, said, “It’s fine. I’m just glad you weren’t digging a hole in the backyard.”
“Hmmm. Wait, what?” Cameron asked.
“Oh, I’ll explain tomorrow,” Donna said, as she drifted back off to sleep.
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“Maybe he just wants to work with you”
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MACKENZIE DAVIS at The Josephine Hart Poetry Hour | British Library, Feb 20 2024
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FEMSLASH FEBRUARY 2024 #13: in which Donna looks out the window with Cameron
Donna had become accustomed to coming downstairs to find Cameron standing near a window, mug in hand, sipping a hot beverage while she observed what was happening in their backyard. She regularly looked out the window with their black cat, Licorice, and once Donna had even heard Cameron go, “Ek ek ek ek ek ek ek,” at a bird near their house, and then turn to the cat, and ask, “Like that?” as if she expected Licorice to give her feedback. Donna would have said something if she herself wasn’t in the habit of having long conversations with Licorice.
Cameron was standing by the kitchen window, by herself, when Donna came home early from work on a sunny spring day. (Licorice was napping by the large window that looked out onto the pool.) As she entered the kitchen, Donna teasingly said, “Don’t you have a game you should be working on?”
Without looking at Donna, Cameron said, “I worked on it all day!”
Donna got a glass from the dishwasher, set it down on the island, and then retrieved a bottle of sparkling water from their refrigerator. As she poured herself a drink, she asked, “Is it the raccoons?”
A few months earlier, before she started working on her first game since Pilgrim, Cameron had somewhat impulsively built a pair of small wooden shelters for any local stray cats that might come along during the colder months. When Donna and Bos pointed out to her that it didn’t normally get that cold in San Francisco, Cameron had cried, “Well, okay, but sometimes it rains, right?”
There was no evidence that any cats had used either of the shelters, but a quartet of raccoons, whom Cameron had named Sam, Frodo, Merry, and Pippin, visited regularly. Licorice had scared them away from the big window, but they still stopped by the shelters daily, where they would usually nap.
“No, they left a while ago,” Cameron said. “Look, though!”
Donna joined Cameron by the sink, and looked out the window, to see a pair of hummingbirds perched on a glass hummingbird feeder. One of them dipped its beak to take a drink of the sugar water Cameron had put in the feeder.
“Since when do we have a hummingbird feeder?” Donna asked.
Cameron turned to Donna. “Are you serious? I installed it two months ago!”
“Wait, really?”
“I’ve mentioned it at least 4 times!” Cameron cried. “Do you listen?”
“Of course I listen!” Donna responded automatically. But, truthfully, Donna had been preoccupied with work lately, and had been putting in many hours of overtime at the office. She hadn’t noticed the new bird feeder, and didn’t remember Cameron saying anything about it.
Rather than argue with Donna, Cameron turned her attention back to the hummingbirds. Donna went back to watching them, too. They were dark green, with shimmery purple feathers around their throats. They seemed relaxed, happy to be perched there together, in the sun, close to a convenient source of food. Donna wondered if they were a couple, and if they ever fought.
“I’m sorry that I didn’t notice the new bird feeder,” Donna whispered. “Thank you for finding ways to attract all kinds of fauna to my backyard.”
“I don’t really do it for you, it’s an entirely selfish pursuit,” Cameron admitted.
“Well,” Donna kissed Cameron’s shoulder, “thank you just the same.” She went back to her forgotten glass of sparkling water.
Cameron didn’t say anything, still mildly upset, but then couldn’t contain herself. “I was thinking about maybe putting in a camera? Like a security camera, but not to catch people doing anything, just for the birds and raccoons.”
“I think that’s a great idea,” Donna smiled. “We can watch the footage together, if you want!”
Cameron’s eye brows creased skeptically. “I feel like you might just be saying that because you still feel bad about the feeder debacle. You should know that I’m still going to hold you to it.”
Donna kissed Cameron’s shoulder again. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
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FEMSLASH FEBRUARY 2024 #12: In which Donna visits Cameron at home
[CN: food/snack/eating mention] . . After she and Gordon managed to put COMDEX behind them, it occurred to Donna that she might not ever see Cameron Howe ever again. Gordon came home every day of December of 1983 with more tales of J0e’s slow but apparent descent into despair over Cameron’s abrupt departure from Cardiff and repeated refusals to take J0e’s calls, and Donna had started to look forward to them. At the very least, Cameron was still in Dallas. But what if J0e, despite his alleged remorse, pestered her out of town? The thought troubled Donna, for some reason that she couldn’t articulate — not that she had anyone to talk to about it.
And so somewhere in between wrapping gifts and writing cards and printing address labels and shopping for groceries Donna decided to stop quietly hoping that she might run into Cameron again some day, and just go visit her instead. Late in the afternoon on the 27th, with Gordon back at the office and the girls busy with a playdate with the kids next door, Donna drove to Cameron’s house.
Cameron, who had just gotten home from a day at her new job, had looked shocked, and a little suspicious, when she found Donna on her front doorstep, holding some kind of covered ish. “Uh, hi! Merry Christmas!” Donna had said. Nose still wrinkled with what looked like both confusion and annoyance, Cameron hadn’t replied. Unsure of what else to say, Donna said, “I brought pie!” and held up the chocolate pecan pie she had baked herself so Cameron could see it. This got Cameron to open the door enough so that Donna could come in.
Donna realized as she followed Cameron to what looked like the kitchen that she had no idea what to even say to her. “Uh, so, how are you? How was your holiday?”
Without looking at her, Cameron said, “I don’t really celebrate.”
“Oh,” Donna said, feeling both embarrassed and sad. “Well, a lot of people don’t celebrate Christmas, right? It’s not mandatory, even here in Texas.”
Cameron turned to look at her. “Is there something you want?”
Donna frowned. “Uh, no. Just to bring you this,” she said, as she set the pie down on the kitchen table. “Oh,” she said, rifling through her purse, “and this.” She produced a gift certificate for Radio Shack, for twenty dollars, and held it out to Cameron.
Cameron’s face softened, and she reached out and took the certificate. She looked at it, and she said, “Uh, thanks, Donna.” She looked back up at Donna and said, “So how are you? I guess you probably had Christmas with Gordon, and the girls?”
“Yeah,” Donna nodded. “It’s mostly just, more work to do when you have kids, but I think everyone had a nice time.”
Cameron put the certificate on the table, and then turned toward the cabinets and drawers. As she grabbed a plate and a pair of forks, she asked, “How’s work? You’re at T.I., right?”
Donna sighed. Cameron returned to the table, took the lid off the pie tin, and cut an awkward slice out of it that promptly fell apart. She dug the pieces out with a fork and put them on the plate and then put it in front of Donna. “Uh, sorry,” she said, as she sat down. She then started eating the rest of the pie directly from the pan.
“Work is…well, I’m thinking of quitting,” Donna admitted.
Cameron’s fork, holding its first bite of pie, stopped in mid air. “Wait, really? That bad, huh?”
Donna mopily ate some of her pie. Cameron finally tried it, and her eyes widened. “Wow, you made this?”
Donna grinned. “I did. One of my many hidden talents.”
Cameron ate another forkful of pie, and then said, “If you’re looking for a new career, I think you might have something here.”
Donna smiled sadly. “I’ve wondered it maybe engineering isn’t right for me. I love it, but it feels sometimes like I don’t really belong there.”
Cameron chewed on another bite of pie, and thought about how she’d probably never belonged at Cardiff, but had never felt like it, or like she shouldn’t be a coder at all. She imagined Donna leaving T.I., and the idea of it made her incredibly sad.
“I don’t know,” Donna said. “Work has just kind of been unbearable since the excitement of COMDEX….” Cameron visibly flinched. “I know that COMDEX wound up being painful for you,” Donna said. “Your operating system was…special and wonderful and I’m sorry that they removed it and for the part my marital problems and bad decisions played in that. But, I’m glad I went.” Donna leaned forward, and looked Cameron in the eye. “And I’m glad that you were there.”
Cameron made herself think about COMDEX. “It was pretty amazing, right? I mean, until it all went to shit.”
Donna laughed as she tried to get some of her broken pie onto her fork. Then, she said, “I’ve seen your code, and I think you’re gonna be fine, Cameron. You’re gonna find your place as a coder.”
“I’m not really sure about that,” Cameron said. “But thanks, Donna.”
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FEMSLASH FEBRUARY 2024 #11: In which Cameron invites Donna to visit
[CN: food/meal mentions] [CN: major character death reference/spoilers for s4 of Halt and Catch Fire] . .
Their new normal, through some miracle, had come to include Donna and Haley coming over to have dinner with Cameron and J0e on a regular basis. Cameron looked forward to it, and she also thought often about how it literally took Gordon dying for her and Donna to become friends again. She felt terribly guilty about this, and wished that she could apologize to Gordon for having taken them all for granted for so long. She also worried that it wouldn’t last, that these dinners would eventually taper off and then stop completely, and that Donna would drift out of her life. She didn’t know how to express this fear, or who to talk to about it.
In early August, J0e threw himself into learning how to use a grill, and then invited Haley and Donna over for grilled vegetables and steaks. They arrived at 7pm on the dot, as always, and Cameron went down to the front door to let them in. When she opened the door, there they both stood, drinks and dessert in hand. Haley was wearing her usual men’s section pants, undershirt, and patterned button down, and Donna, who seemed to be glowing, was wearing a dressy-looking wool knit tank top and linen shorts.
During their regular awkward-but-sincere greeting hug, Cameron felt Donna’s bicep. “Jesus, you look great,” she blurted out. “Did a new Jane Fonda aerobics tape come out or something?”
Donna chuckled, and Haley wryly said, “It’s probably all the swimming.”
“Oh,” Cameron said, feeling slightly embarrassed.
They all had their usual surreal-but-genuine dinner conversation as they ate. Updates on Comet, recent pop culture happenings, current events, the occasional Silicon Valley rumor, all spoken about as if things were normal, as if they didn’t all still feel Gordon’s absence keenly. They joked and they laughed and they didn’t say how strange it felt, they just kept at it as best they could. And after they finished the entree, Cameron, as always, got up to clear their plates, and said, ‘No, no, sit, I’ve got it’ when J0e offered to help, and then waited for Donna to come and join her in the kitchen while she pretended to wash the dishes.
Their kitchen conversations had been awkward at first, but had become more comfortable surprisingly quickly. Donna came into the kitchen that night and said, “So…how you doing?”
Cameron smiled reflexively as she pulled a bottle of seltzer out of the refrigerator. Closing the door behind her and turning back to Donna, she said, “Hanging in there….” She saw that Donna had her glass in her hand, and asked, “Refill?”
Donna handed the glass over. “If you would be so kind.”
Cameron took the cap off the seltzer, put it on the counter and then took Donna’s glass. “You look like you’re doing a lot better than just hanging in there.”
As Cameron poured the seltzer, Donna beamed. “Well, thank you. I try.”
Cameron offered the glass back to Donna. She opened her mouth to say something, then hesitated, and then after Donna took the glass back, she said, “You definitely, you know. You seem better than you did that day that you came out to my trailer.”
Donna had just sat down at the kitchen table. She sat up straight, suddenly, but didn’t say anything.
“I mean, I was worried,” Cameron added. She refilled her own glass, and then she screwed the cap back onto the seltzer bottle, and went back to the refrigerator, grateful for a reason to not look directly at Donna. “I wanted to make sure you were okay back then, but, I don’t know. I didn’t know if I should bother you.”
She lingered by the refrigerator, and then she said, “I’m sorry, really, about, you know, Rover. God, all of that seems like a different life, but also, it doesn’t, and either way, I shouldn’t have gotten involved —“
“It’s okay,” Donna smiled glumly.
“Really?” Cameron asked. She took a step toward the table.
“It was almost nice. I saw your code, and it was like working with you again.” She paused, and then admitted, “I never stopped missing that. I never stopped missing you.” She looked away, and then said, “I guess, I just didn’t realize how much I missed you until that day I had to go see you.”
Cameron frowned. It felt like there was something Donna wasn’t saying, was hiding. “It’s usually like that, right? It doesn’t really hit you, until it does.”
Donna’s shoulders sagged sadly. “I didn’t want that to be over. But, it is over,” she said. “And that’s okay.”
It didn’t look like it was okay with Donna. Cameron felt, oddly, as if she had had this conversation before, but didn’t know why, or how to articulate how it felt.
Donna picked up her glass and held it up. “Mutiny was here.”
Cameron raised her glass, and said it back, “Mutiny was here.”
Without breaking eye contact, they both drank. Afterwards, Donna gave her another one of those sad, resigned smiles.
It occurred to Cameron that she’d had a version of this conversation with J0e. Cameron wondered if this was mere coincidence.
She put her glass down on the kitchen table, and sat across from Donna. Desperate to change the subject, said, “I haven’t been out there in a while. At my trailer I mean. I would, but, J0e hates being out there, and, I don’t really feel like I can leave him.” She stopped short of asking, ‘What does it mean when you want to be with someone, but being with them feels like being in a trap?’
As if she could hear Cameron’s thoughts, Donna said, “Well, that’s what being in a relationship is like, sometimes. It won’t always be like that, though.”
Cameron felt like this general wisdom didn’t apply to her situation. “Yeah. I hope you’re right.”
Encouragingly, Donna said, “It will pass.” She took a sip of her seltzer, and then she said, “You’ll be able to go back out to your property and live as a recluse most of the time before you know it.”
Cameron leaned back in her chair, and relaxed slightly. “I am kind of a recluse, huh?”
“There are worse things,” Donna said.
Abruptly, without thinking it through, Cameron asked, “You wanna come visit me out there? When I’m able to live out at my property again?” Donna looked surprised. “No paperwork,” Cameron added quickly, “no work stuff at all. Just a social visit. We can sit out by my fire pit.”
Donna thought about it for a second, and then smiled. “Yeah, sure. Count me in.”
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FEMSLASH FEBRUARY 2024 #10: In which Cameron and Donna have a slight difference of opinion
[CN: food/breakfast/deli mention] . . Three months after Mutiny’s relocation to California, Gordon decided to visit with his parents for the day, and he took the girls with him. Donna woke up to an empty house, and for the first time in weeks, didn’t jump up to rush to the office. She slept until 9, and then lay in bed and listened to the birds sing outside her bedroom window for a full twenty minutes before getting up, throwing on her favorite pair of sweatpants, and heading downstairs.
She was in the kitchen, gazing out the window into their backyard, and trying to decide if she should make breakfast or go out when Cameron emerged from the bedroom she shared with the girls. “Hey,” she said, squinting tiredly. “Where is everyone? Did they already leave for their day trip?”
“Hmm, bright and early,” Donna replied. “Gordon wanted to be on the road by 7. Said it’s not a short drive.”
“Yeesh,” Cameron said, sitting down at the table. Unable to contain herself, Donna snorted with laughter at this.
It was sunny out, and Donna could see birds and squirrels in the back yard. She watched them, and then said, “Do you hear that?”
Cameron looked around. “No?”
“The quiet,” Donna sighed. “I’d forgotten peace and quiet sound like.” When Cameron didn’t say anything, Donna shrugged, “It might be a parent thing.” Then she added, “I like that my girls are noisy. I don’t mind a break from it, though.”
Cameron stood up slowly and walked over to the window, curious about what Donna might be looking at. She looked, but didn’t see anything of note. “I think I like the noise better. It makes it feel like home.”
“Really?” Donna turned to look at her. “Well, I’m glad you feel comfortable, and at home, here.”
“Yeah. It’s nice living with a family. Even if it technically isn’t, like, my family,” Cameron nodded.
Donna smiled sadly at Cameron. “We can be your family, if you want.”
The silence that Donna had been enjoying became heavy. Awkwardly, Cameron went toward the refrigerator, and said, “Yes, I’m sure Gordon will love the added responsibility of a 25 year old child.”
Donna scoffed. “Like he hasn’t been a part-time man baby for our entire relationship.”
Cameron snorted as she looked in the refrigerator.
Donna watched Cameron look for something to eat for a few seconds, and it occurred to her that she hadn’t spent any real or non-work time with Cameron since, well, ever. “Hey. I was thinking about going out for breakfast.”
Cameron straightened up, and over her shoulder, said, “There’s a deli a few blocks from here that makes the best egg sandwich I’ve ever had.”
“Really? Like in walking distance?” Donna said, as if she’d never heard of such a thing. (But then, being able to walk to a local store was unheard of back in the Dallas suburbs.) “Wanna show me were it is?”
Cameron grinned at her. “Sure.”
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FEMSLASH FEBRUARY 2018 12/28: HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY, PEOPLE!!!
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FEMSLASH FEBRUARY #13: In which Cameron unexpectedly gets some validation
[CN: food/eating]
It’s Valentine’s Day, 1985, and it’s another hectic morning in the Clark house, Gordon is wrangling the girls, and Donna, who usually rushes off to work as early as she can, is in the kitchen, chopping strawberries and making french toast for everyone. It’s bringing her more joy than she thought it would, and so she doesn’t have to fake it when she says good morning to her girls. They finally troop downstairs, more or less on schedule, and sit down at the table. 
“Good morning, monkeys!” Donna greets them. She brings two plates of french toast to the table and sets them in front of Haley and Joanie. “Happy Valentine’s Day,” she kisses Haley’s head. She goes around to Joanie’s chair, kisses her too, and says, “Will you be my valentines? You will, right?”
“I will,” Haley nods.
“Okay,” Joanie shrugs. Then as Donna goes to the coffee maker to pour a cup for Gordon, Joanie says, “Actually, can I be Cameron’s valentine?”
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